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Searchiigt: 
Christian  Seiee^^ 


*     MAR  29  1900      * 


Problems  of  the  Day 


Some  Latter-Day  Religions.  By  Rev,  George  Hamilton 
Coombs.     i2mo,  cloth,  $1.25. 

An  attempt  to  counteract  the  baneful  efforts  of  the  Athenian 
"itching"  for  new  things,  so  prevalent  of  late  years.  The  treatment 
is  exceedingly  popular  in  style  and  comprises  twelve  different  "isms," 
including  Materialism,  Socialism,  Theosophy,  Pessimism,  Agnosti- 
cism, Liberalism,  Spiritualism,  Mormonisra,  Christian  Science,  Faith 
Cure,  Aceticism,  etc. 

A  Study  of  Faith  Healing.  By  Alfred  T.  Schofield,  M.D. 
i2mo,  paper,  net,  25  cents;  cloth,  net,  50  cents. 

"It  is  refreshing  to  meet  with  Dr.  Alfred  T.  Schofield's  Faith 
Healing,  in  which  good  sense  and  all-around  fairness  are  prominent 
features.  The  assumption  that  sickness  may  be  traced  to  unfaithful- 
ness, that  Christ  died  that  illness  might  never  be  the  lot  of  His  peo- 
ple and  that  the  use  of  means  implies  a  want  of  faith,  he  shows  to  be 
without  foundation."— /"//<?  ^.  5.  Tzw^J.  ,  ,.       , 

"There  is  not  only  room,  but  need,  for  such  a  volume  as  this.  It 
is  a  calm,  fair,  thorough  study  of  the  subject,  earnest  to  discover  and 
willing  to  admit  the  truth."— 77;^  Consregationalist. 

Divine  Healing  and  the  Doctors— "What  Says  the  Bible  ?  By 
Rev.  John  Wesley  Conley,  D.  D.  i2mo,  paper,  net, 
15c.;  cloth,  net,  35c. 

Search-Lights  on  Christian  Science.  A  Symposium.  i2mo, 
paper,  25c.;  cloth,  50c. 
Contents:— The  History  of  Christian  Science,  by  John  Rothwell 
Slater.  The  Theology  of  Christian  Science,  by  Rev.  H.  P.  Beach. 
The  Philosophy  of  Christian  Science,  bv  Rev.  VV.  H.  P.  Faunce.D.D. 
The  Inherent  Difficulties  and  Absurdities  of  Christian  Science,  by 
Rev.  J.  W.  Conley,  D.  D.  Explanation  of  the  Growth  of  Christian 
Science,  by  Rev.  L.  A.  Crandall,  D.  D.  The  Precursors  of  Ciiristian 
Science,  by  Prof.  Franklin  Johnson,  D.  D.  The  Future  of  Christian 
Science,  by  Rev.  Benj.  A.  Greene,  D.  D. 

What  is  Christian  Science?  By  P.  C.  Wolcott,  B.  D.  An 
Examination  of  the  Metaphysical,  the  Theological, 
and  the  Therapeutic  Theories  of  the  System.  i2mo, 
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An  English  View  of  Christian  Science.  By  Anne  Harwood. 
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Christian  Science  Examined.  By  Henry  Varley.  i6mo, 
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Searchlights    on 
Christian    Science 


A   SYMPOSIUM 


£¥T^S 


Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

Chicago      :      New  York      :      Toronto 
1899 


COPYRIGHTED   1898-1899 

BY 

GOODMAN   &   DICKERSON  CO 


PREFACE 

This  series  of  articles  upon  Christian  Science 
first  appeared  in  The  Standard,  of  Chicago, 
during  the  first  part  of  the  present  year.  The 
original  series,  containing  seven  of  the  chapters, 
was  prepared  at  the  request  of  the  editors  to 
meet  an  evident  demand.  The  choice  of  writers 
and  assignment  of  topics  was  purposely  so  made 
as  to  insure  a  variety  of  method  and  of  opinion. 
Had  it  been  desired  to  produce  a  systematic 
treatise  possessing  entire  unity  and  consistency, 
the  task  would  naturally  have  been  committed  to 
a  single  writer.  It  was  thought  that  the  views  of 
various  men,  some  trained  as  students,  others  as 
practical  pastors  ministering  to  many  classes, 
would  better  serve  the  purpose.  This  purpose 
was  quite  as  much  to  inform  The  Standard's 
readers  on  the  tenets  and  usages  of  Christian 
Science  as  to  combat  the  new  teaching.  A  cer- 
tain divergence  of  feeling  and  of  opinion  due  to 
the  different  estimates  of  the  several  writers 
is  therefore  not  regarded  as  unfortunate.  It 
fairly  represents  the  sentiment  of  evangelical 
denominations  toward  Christian  Science. 

The  last  three  articles  were  contributed  to  The 
Standard  as  in  some  degree  supplementary  to 


Preface 

the  others,  emphasizing  phases  of  the  subject  not 
fully  treated  before.  Their  "searchlights"  are 
directed  from  new  angles,  and  illuminate  some 
untouched  points.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  series 
has  already  proved  widely  useful  in  correcting 
vague  impressions  and  enabling  the  ordinary 
reader,  unable  or  unwilling  to  peruse  ''Science 
and  Health"  and  the  other  literature  of  Christian 
Science,  to  perceive  the  superficial  resemblances 
and  fundamental  contrasts  between  Mrs.  Eddy's 
doctrines  and  the  teaching  of  Scripture.  That  it 
may,  as  now  published,  still  further  direct  the 
thought  of  the  Christian  public  to  the  true  sources 
of  knowledge  concerning  the  duty  and  destiny  of 
man,  is  the  earnest  hope  of  the  authors. 
August^  i8gg. 


CONTENTS 

I.  Its  History   .     .     .  John  Rothwell  Slater    .     .  9 

II.  Its  Theology     .     .  Rev.  H.  H.  Beach  ....  23 

III.  Its  Philosophy  .     .  Pres.W.  H.P.  Faunce,  D.D.  37 

IV.  Its  Inherent  Diffi- 

culties    ....  J.W.  Conley,  D.D.    ...  51 
V.  Its  Growth    .     .     .  Lathan  A.  Crandall,  D.D.  63 
VI.  Its  Precursors  .     .  Franklin  Johnson,  D.D.     .  75 
VII.  Its  Future      .     .    .  Benjamin  A.  Greene,  D.D.  85 
VIII.  Its  Errors      .     .     .  Cephas  B.  Crane.  D.D.     .  98 
IX.  Some  Practical  In- 
cidents   .     .     .     .  E.  S.  Plimpton 104 

X.  Its  Form  and  Sub- 
stance     ....   O.  P.  Gifford.  D.D.  .     .     .114 


Searchlights 


ON 


Christian    Science 


I 

THE  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

BY    JOHN    ROTHWELL    SLATER 

A  religious  movement  which  within  a  quarter 
of  a  century  has  won  many  thousands  of  adher- 
ents, without  the  slightest  attractions  in  the  way 
of  elaborate  ritual  or  familiar  creed,  is  worthy  of 
careful  study.  When  that  movement  has  drawn 
many  of  its  followers  from  evangelical  churches, 
including  persons  of  unquestioned  intelligence 
and  piety,  such  study  becomes  a  duty.  If  the 
new  teaching  be  proved  to  contain  elements  of 
truth  which  Christian  people  have  ignored  or 
neglected,  then  we  must  correct  our  practice  to 
square  with  the  truth,  whether  the  truth  be  new 
or  old.  If  the  novel  doctrines  prove  to  contain 
fundamental  errors,  errors  which  are  capable  of 
undermining  Christian  faith  and  of  leading  men 
and  women  far  from  the  simple  gospel  of  the 
New   Testament,   then  those    errors    should    be 

9 


10  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

plainly  pointed  out.  This  is  not  persecution ;  it 
is  not  bigotry ;  it  is  not  intolerance.  Those  words 
all  imply  that  the  critics  of  the  new  doctrine 
desire  to  restrict  the  social  or  civil  liberties  of 
the  persons  whose  views  they  seek  to  refute. 
Baptists  should  be  the  last  of  all  people  to  deny 
to  any  man  the  widest  liberty  of  conscience  and 
belief.  Unless  we  are  to  proclaim  ourselves 
narrower  than  our  forefathers,  we  shall  continue 
to  demand  for  others  the  same  civil  rights  and 
privileges  that  we  enjoy.  We  shall  freely  admit 
the  right  of  the  Christian  Scientist  to  those  rights 
and  to  our  respectful  and  courteous  attention. 
Where  his  faith  touches  the  law  of  the  state,  we 
shall  feel  at  liberty  to  demand  his  obedience  to 
that  law,  provided  we  believe  the  law  to  be  a 
salutary  one  for  the  protection  of  society.  But 
so  far  as  his  right  to  hold  certain  doctrines,  and 
to  worship  after  his  own  preference,  is  concerned, 
no  thoughtful  citizen  can  entertain  a  doubt,  and 
no  true  Christian  can  find  warrant  for  giving  way 
to  anger  or  abuse.  The  Christian  Scientist  is 
justified  in  complaining  that  the  very  terms  in 
which  some  critics  denounce  his  belief  belie  their 
profession  as  followers  of  Jesus  Christ,  who 
never  denounced  anybody  except  hypocrites. 

Having  said  so  much,  the  writer  of  this  article, 
and  the  writers  of  those  which  are  to  follow,  will 
not  offer  apology  for  any  criticism,  however 
severe,  passed  upon  the  teaching  and  the  practice 
of  Christian  Science,  considered  as  a  system  of 
religion,  philosophy  and   therapeutics.      In  that 


ITS   HISTORY  II 

aspect  it  is  a  legitimate  subject  of  criticism;  and 
if  the  objections  offered  are  based  upon  correct 
statement  of  facts  and  correct  principles  of  logic, 
they  cannot  be  justly  regarded  as  the  outgrowth 
of  bigotry. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  A  FEW  YEARS. 

Christian  Science  has  had  a  marvelous  growth. 
Its  origin  was  in  the  year  1866,  when  Mrs.  Mary 
Baker  G.  Eddy  first  formulated  the  main  doc- 
trines which  later  developed  into  a  system ;  but 
though  she  began  teaching  these  doctrines  in  the 
following  year,  it  was  not  until  the  publication  of 
her  text-book,  "Science  and  Health,"  in  1875, 
that  any  considerable  number  of  followers  was 
attracted  to  the  new  faith.  The  first  "Christian 
Scientist  Association"  was  formed  in  Boston  in 
1876 ;  this  body  three  years  later  was  incorporated 
as  a  church,  entitled  the  First  Church  of  Christ, 
Scientist.  At  its  organization  it  had  but  twenty- 
six  members;  it  has  now  about  1,400  resident 
members,  besides  more  than  10,000  non-resident. 
The  total  number  of  Christian  Scientists  in  the 
United  States  cannot  be  stated  exactly.  There 
are  304  chartered  churches,  a  list  of  which  may 
be  found  in  the  Christian  Science  Journal,  a 
monthly  magazine  published  by  the  parent 
church  in  Boston.  In  addition  to  these  there  are 
III  regular  Sunday  services  held  by  persons  in 
sympathy  with  the  denomination,  many  of  which 
bodies  will  probably  be  organized  as  churches. 
The    enrolled    membership     of    the     chartered 


12  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

churches  is  stated  at  70,000.  Leaders  of  the 
denomination  claim,  however,  that  the  actual 
number  of  persons  who  regularly  attend  their 
services  and  accept  their  tenets  is  far  in  excess  of 
this  figure.  The  estimate  of  Mr.  Carol  Norton, 
one  of  the  board  of  lecturers,  who  writes  to  the 
Independent  of  January  5,  1899,  is  *'not  less  than 
300,000  in  the  United  States  and  Canada." 
While  this  figure  will  be  regarded  as  excessive  by 
many,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Christian 
Science  is  growing  rapidly.  Until  recently  the 
Boston  church  was  the  only  one  with  a  building 
of  its  own,  especially  constructed  for  it,  though 
congregations  in  many  cities  occupied  rented 
quarters  in  the  edifices  of  other  denominations. 
Now,  however,  according  to  Mr.  Norton,  thirty 
buildings  are  in  course  of  erection.  The  First 
Church  of  Christ,  Scientist,  in  Chicago,  dedicated 
November  14,  1897,  free  of  debt,  a  beautiful 
marble  structure,  of  Grecian  architecture,  on  one 
of  the  finest  boulevards  of  the  South  Side,  costing 
over  $100,000;  and  the  Second  and  Third 
Churches,  on  the  North  and  West  Sides  respect- 
ively,  are  planning  to  erect  commodious  and 
elegant  buildings  in  the  near  future.  The 
Second  Church,  of  New  York  City,  has  begun  the 
erection  of  a  house  of  worship  near  Central  Park, 
which  will  cost,  according  to  the  building  permit, 
$220,000.  Other  building  enterprises  might  be 
named. 

The  movement  has  grown  most  rapidly  in  the 
large  cities,  where  it  has  attracted  many  persons 


ITS   HISTORY  13 

of  considerable  means  and  social  standing.  Yet 
it  has  also  pushed  its  way  into  scores  and  hun- 
dreds of  towns  and  villages,  where  the  numbers 
may  be  small  and  the  meeting-place  obscure,  but 
the  influence  on  evangelical  churches  consider- 
able. Take,  for  instance,  such  a  state  as  Iowa. 
In  Iowa  Christian  Science  churches  or  congrega- 
tions are  reported  in  no  less  than  thirty-four 
cities  and  towns,  as  follows:  Algona,  Bunch, 
Burlington,  Carpenter,  Cedar  Rapids,  Charles 
City,  Clinton,  Council  Bluffs,  Creston,  Daven- 
port, Denison,  Des  Moines,  Douds,  Dubuque, 
Estherville,  Exira,  Fort  Dodge,  Independence, 
Keokuk,  Le  Mars,  Marshalltown,  Mason  City, 
McGregor,  Missouri  Valley,  Oskaloosa,  Ottumwa, 
Rock  Valley,  Rudd,  Sheldon,  Sioux  City,  Tipton, 
Washington,  Webster  City,  and  What  Cheer.  In 
fourteen  other  towns  of  the  state  there  are  Chris- 
tian Science  practitioners,  who  of  course  dissem- 
inate more  or  less  the  doctrines  by  which  they 
profess  to  cure  disease.  It  is  evident  that,  if  this 
state  is  a  fair  example,  the  sympathizers  with 
Christian  Science  in  the  entire  country  must  be 
numerous,  though  perhaps  200,000  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  than  300,000. 

And  this  has  been  the  growth  of  twenty  years. 
It  does  not  fall  within  the  province  of  this  article 
to  discuss  the  reasons  for  this  remarkable  increase, 
nor  to  decide  whether  it  constitutes  any  serious 
menace  to  orthodox  Christianity,  nor  to  predict 
the  future.  A  brief  sketch  of  the  first  years  of 
the  movement,  especially  of  Mrs.  Eddy  and  her 


14  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON    CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

relation  to  it,  will  prepare  us  to  consider  in 
future  articles  questions  of  more  vital  interest  to 
Christian  pastors  and  people.  For  some  of  the 
facts  here  stated,  the  writer  is  indebted  to  an 
article  by  S.  J.  Hanna  in  Progress,  a  monthly 
magazine  published  by  the  University  Associa- 
tion, Chicago,  in  June,  1898,  containing  a  brief 
but  clear  account  of  the  history  and  principles  of 
Christian  Science  by  an  authorized  exponent. 
Other  facts  have  been  derived  from  "Science  and 
Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,"  by  Mrs. 
Mary  Baker  G.  Eddy,  the  text-book  of  Christian 
Science,  first  published  in  1875,  now  in  its  one 
hundred  and  sixtieth  edition  (of  1,000  copies 
each).  This  book  is  chiefly  an  exposition  of  the 
author's  metaphysical  system,  with  some  practical 
suggestions  on  healing,  the  social  relations,  the 
interpretation  of  the  scriptures,  etc.,  but  contains 
some  historical  references.  Other  information 
has  been  gained  from  the  Christian  Science 
Journal  and  various  pamphlets  published  by  the 
Christian  Science  Publishing  Society,  of  Boston. 

MRS.   eddy's  life. 

Mrs.  Eddy's  maiden  name  was  Mary  Baker. 
She  was  born  near  Concord,  N.  H.,  her  parents 
being  persons  of  Scotch  and  English  extraction. 
The  date  of  her  birth  is  not  stated,  but  as  she  was 
first  married  in  1843  it  cannot  be  far  from  1825. 
She  received  an  academic  education,  followed  by 
private  study  under  the  direction  of  tutors,  includ- 
ing such  subjects  as  natural  philosophy,  rhetoric, 


ITS  HISTORY  15 

logic,  metaphysics  and  the  classics.     While  still 
very  young  she    united   with   a   Congregational 
church,  and  remained  a  member  until  1879.     She 
wrote  for  various  magazines  on  literary  and  patri- 
otic subjects  and  for  many  years  took  more  or  less 
part  in  certain  philanthropic  enterprises.     Mrs. 
Eddy  was  twice  married ;   her  first  husband  was 
Col.   G.   W.   Glover,  her  second  Dr.  A.  G.  Eddy. 
She  studied  homeopathy,  but  did  not  practice  as  a 
regular  physician.     During  many  years,  accord- 
ing to  her  statement,  she  attempted  to  discover 
the  true  relation  between  physical  ailments  and 
mental  conditions.     In  1866,  while  suffering  from 
an   injury  supposed  to  be   incurable — the  exact 
nature  of  which  is  not  described— she  applied  the 
principle  which  she  had  finally  formulated  as  to 
the    unreality    of     disease    and     the     power    of 
** immortal   mind"   over    the    "error    of    mortal 
mind"   commonly  supposed  to   be  disease;    and 
the  immediate  cure  to  which  she  testifies  led  her 
to  elaborate  her  theories,  to  undertake  a  study  of 
the  scriptures  from  her  new  point  of  view,  and 
finally  to  write  "Science  and  Health."     For  the 
instruction  of  others  in  the  "principle  and  rule  of 
spiritual  science  and  metaphysical  healing — in  a 
word,  Christian  Science,"  she  relied  at  first  upon 
small  classes.     These  grew  into  the  Massachusetts 
Metaphysical  College,  incorporated  in  Boston  in 
1 88 1,    which     still     trains     practitioners    in    the 
methods  prescribed  by  the  founder.     The  fees  for 
instruction   were  large,   the   revenues   from   the 
sale  of  "Science  and  Health"  also  grew  steadily, 


l6  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

and  the  movement  began  to  assume   large  pro- 
portions. 

Mrs.  Eddy  acted  as  pastor  of  the  Boston  church 
from  1 88 1  until  1895.  She  then  retired,  and  now 
lives  on  a  fine  country  place  near  Concord,  N.H., 
retaining  a  certain  amount  of  oversight  in  the 
direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  churches  through 
her  communications  to  the  Boston  church  and  her 
articles  in  the  denominational  magazine.  While 
no  definite  limits  seem  to  be  assigned  to  her 
authority  in  this  respect,  her  followers  almost 
universally  regard  her  wishes  as  law,  and  have 
no  desire  to  dispute  her  commands.  She  is  com- 
monly referred  to  among  them  as  "mother";  but 
there  seems  to  be  no  ground  for  the  charge  some- 
times made  by  critics  of  the  sect  that  she  either 
claims  or  allows  her  disciples  to  attribute  to  her 
anything  even  approaching  divine  honors.  The 
charge  may  have  arisen  from  the  emphasis  which 
is  laid  in  "Science  and  Health"  upon  what  she 
calls  the  divine  maternity,  the  feminine  element 
in  the  divine  nature. 

THE    PROMINENCE  OF    WOMEN   IN    CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE. 

In  this  connection  a  most  remarkable  feature  of 
the  movement  should  be  noted.  It  was  not  only 
founded  by  a  woman,  but  it  has  been  spread 
chiefly  through  the  agency  of  women.  The 
practitioners,  graduated  from  the  training  school 
in  Boston,  who  go  all  over  the  country  to  engage 
in  their  occupation  as  healers  and  also  to  propa- 
gate Christian  Science  doctrines,  are  nearly  all 


ITS  HISTORY  17 

women.  In  the  Christian  Science  Journal  (for 
December,  1898)  appears  a  list  of  registered  prac- 
titioners numbering  about  1,625;  and  of  these 
only  about  290  are  men,  and  nearly  all  of  these 
are  the  husbands  of  women  whose  names  also 
appear  in  the  list.  Most  of  the  testimonies  con- 
cerning cures  that  appear  in  the  Journal  (though 
not  all)  are  from  women.  While  considerable 
numbers  of  men  attend  the  church  services  and 
sympathize  with  the  movement,  it  may  be  said, 
so  far  as  observation  goes,  that  they  are  usually 
attracted  and  interested  through  their  wives  and 
families,  rather  than  drawn  to  the  churches  of 
their  own  accord  by  the  character  of  the  doctrines 
there  proclaimed.  Further,  the  men  seem  to  lay 
greater  emphasis  on  the  cures  which  they  believe 
to  have  been  wrought  by  this  agency  than  on  the 
abstract  and  often  incomprehensible  theories  of 
Mrs.  Eddy's  book. 

CHURCH    POLITY. 

A  brief  account  of  the  organization  and  form  of 
service  of  the  Christian  Science  churches  may 
properly  be  included  in  this  historical  sketch. 
These  churches  are  incorporated  like  ordinary 
churches,  under  state  laws.  They  owe  a  certain 
degree  of  loyalty  to  the  parent  church  in  Boston, 
and  contribute  to  the  expenses  of  the  movement, 
but  are  for  the  most  part  self-governing.  The 
requirements  for  membership  seem  to  be  an 
acceptance  of  the  platform  of  the  denomination, 
containing  a  series  of  affirmations  and  negations 


i8  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

concerning  mind,  matter,  truth,  error,  God  and 
man,  and  a  willingness  to  cooperate  in  spreading 
these  doctrines.  They  certainly  include  an 
acceptance  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  his 
Messiahship ;  though  in  what  sense  the  reader  will 
be  more  fully  informed  in  later  articles.  Chris- 
tian Scientists  appear  to  lay  little  emphasis  on 
rites,  the  outward  forms  of  which  they  believe  to 
be  of  small  importance. 

"Our  baptism,"  says  Mrs.  Eddy,  "is  a  purifica- 
tion from  the  flesh.  Our  church  is  built  on 
Christ,  the  divine  principle  of  the  man  Jesus. 
We  can  unite  with  this  church  only  as  we  are  new 
born  of  the  Spirit— as  we  reach  the  life  that  is 
truth  and  the  truth  that  is  life— bringing  forth 
the  fruits  of  love,  casting  out  error  and  healing 
the  sick.  Our  eucharist  is  spiritual  communion 
with  the  Father,  the  one  Spirit.  Our  bread  is 
that  'which  cometh  down  from  heaven.'  Our 
cup  is  the  cross-bearing  inspiration  of  love — the 
cup  that  our  Master  drank,  and  of  which  he  said, 
'Drink  ye  all  of  it.'  " 

Christian  Science  churches  have  no  pastors. 
The  public  services,  usually  held  on  Sunday 
morning  and  evening,  are  conducted  by  two 
readers,  who  must  have  had  certain  training  in 
the  principles  of  the  faith.  Frequently  one  of  the 
two  is  a  man,  the  other  a  woman.  A  morning 
service  in  the  Chicago  church  is  somewhat  as  fol- 
lows :  There  are  several  hymns,  selected  from  the 
hymnal  published  by  the  organization.  Then  one 
reader  repeats  the  Lord's  prayer,  pausing  after 


ITS  HISTORY  19 

each  phrase  to  allow  the  other  reader  to  add 
Mrs.  Eddy's  ** spiritual  interpretation"  thereof. 
Whether  this  is  an  interpretation  or  not,  one  may 
determine  for  himself  by  the  following  specimen : 

Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven, 

"Our  Father  and  Mother  God,  all  harmonious." 
Hallowed  be  thy  name, 

"Adorable  one." 
Thy  kingdom  come, 

"Thy  kingdom  is  come,  good  is  ever  present  and 
omnipotent." 

And  forgive  us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors. 

"And  divine  love  is  reflected  in  love." 
And  lead  us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from 
evil. 

"And  leaveth  us  not  in  temptation,  but  delivereth 
us  from  evil,  sin,  disease  and  death." 

This  is  the  only  audible  prayer  used  by  the 
Christian  Scientists.  They  do  not  believe  in 
prayer  in  the  ordinary  Christian  understanding  of 
that  term.  After  this  exercise  follows  the 
responsive  reading  of  a  few  sentences  from  the 
scriptures  and  "Science  and  Health"  by  the  read- 
ers and  the  congregation,  using  a  printed  leaflet 
published  by  the  denomination,  in  which  the 
services  for  all  churches  are  the  same  for  a  given 
Sunday.  Then  comes  the  ''sermon,"  which  is  no 
sermon  at  all,  but  a  half-hour's  reading  by  the 
two  readers,  alternating,  from  the  Bible  and 
"Science  and  Health,"  the  selections  being  also 
decided  by  the  general  committee  of  the  church 
at  the  Boston  headquarters.     An  offering  is  fol- 


20  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

lowed,  not  by  a  benediction,  but  by  the  reading  of 
the  "scientific  statement  of  being,"  which,  as  a 
sort  of  brief  creed,  may  be  noted  here : 

'•There  is  no  life,  truth,  intelligence,  or  sub- 
stance, in  matter.  All  is  infinite  mind  and  its 
infinite  manifestation,  for  God  is  all  in  all.  Spirit 
is  immortal  truth ;  matter  is  mortal  error.  Spirit 
is  the  real  and  eternal ;  matter  is  the  unreal  and 
temporal.  Spirit  is  God,  and  man  is  his  image 
and  likeness;  hence  man  is  spiritual  and  not 
material." 

This  closes  the  service.  In  the  evening,  the 
scripture  selection  is  identical  with  the  Interna- 
tional Sunday-school  lesson  for  the  day.  A  mid- 
week meeting  is  given  to  testimonies  from 
persons  who  believe  themselves  to  have  been 
healed  of  disease  by  accepting  the  conception  of 
the  power  of  mind  over  matter  which  is  a  part  of 
their  religion. 

THE    CURES. 

Intelligent  Christian  Scientists  estimate  the 
proportion  of  their  number  attracted  to  the  sub- 
ject and  convinced  by  personal  knowledge  of 
physical  cures  as  three-fourths  of  the  whole.  In 
other  words,  the  remarkable  book  of  Mrs.  Eddy, 
whose  obscurities,  absurdities  and  self-contradic- 
tions must  be  evident  to  any  educated  reader  not 
blinded  by  an  unreasoning  credulity,  is  not  respon- 
sible for  the  wonderful  growth  of  Christian 
Science.  A  few  minds  here  and  there,  especially 
those  easily  mystified  by  abstract  terms  and  the 


ITS  HISTORY  21 

artful  use  of  capital  letters,  have  been  converted 
solely  through  this  book,  without  reference  to  its 
practical  application.  But  the  great  majority 
have,  either  before  becoming  acquainted  with 
"Science  and  Health,"  or  during  its  study, 
learned  of  persons  being  suddenly  and  strangely 
released  from  the  grasp  of  some  chronic  and 
severe  disease  while  under  the  care  of  Christian 
Science  practitioners.  They  have  witnessed  the 
swift  transformation  of  an  apparently  helpless 
rheumatic  or  paralytic  patient  into  an  active  and 
cheerful  person.  Or  in  their  own  bodies  they 
have  felt  such  changes,  after  proving  for  months 
or  years  the  powerlessness  of  drugs  to  effect  a 
radical  cure.  Let  us  be  prepared  to  admit  that 
great  numbers  of  such  cures  have  occurred.  To 
attempt  to  break  down  the  evidence  on  which 
they  rest  would  be,  in  many  cases,  a  waste  of 
time;  though  certainly  many  persons  have  sup- 
posed themselves  to  be  cured  when  they  were 
really  only  temporarily  relieved  of  pain;  and 
many  others  have  testified  to  wonderful  cures  of 
ailments  which  never  existed  save  in  their  own 
imagination — such  as  certain  cases  of  * 'nervous 
prostration,"  and  similar  ill-defined  maladies 
which,  any  good  physician  knows,  often  need  no 
cure  save  the  firm  resolution  of  the  patient  to 
throw  away  pills  and  powders,  get  out  of  doors, 
and  take  some  interest  in  life.  But  cures  have 
been  wrought,  and  apparently  in  not  a  few  cases 
where  according  to  ordinary  views  of  physiology 
the  mind  is  not  a  controlling  factor.     This  is  the 


22  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

fact  which  Christian  Scientists  rely  upon  as  their 
unassailable  defense.  To  their  minds  it  proves 
that  disease  is  merely  an  illusion,  an  "error  of 
mortal  mind,"  that  matter  has  no  existence,  that 
the  whole  fabric  of  crude  philosophizing  com- 
pounded by  Mrs.  Eddy  from  various  ancient  and 
modern  idealists  and  from  a  method  of  scriptural 
exegesis  more  fantastic  than  that  of  Origen  or  the 
Talmud,  is  infallibly  true.  This  is  the  most 
stupendous  non  sequitur  in  the  history  of  de- 
lusions. 


II 

THE  THEOLOGY  OF  CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE 

BY    REV.   H.   H.   BEACH 

•'Spiritual  Science,"  *' Mental  Science,"  "Mind 
Cure, ' '  and  similar  cults — suckers  on  the  thrifty- 
stock  of  Christian  Science,  condemned  and  anath- 
ematized by  the  Boston  people — are  outside  the 
scope  of  this  paper. 

Inasmuch  as  Christian  Scientists  frequently 
accuse  their  critics  of  misunderstanding  their 
system  and  of  garbling  quotations  from  their 
writings,  we  are  compelled  both  to  prove  our 
points  by  quotations  and  to  quote  whole  sentences 
where  only  parts  are  relevant.  We  also  preserve 
their  capital  initials,  a  harmless  cipher  by  which 
the  initiated  distinguish  the  divine.  The  num- 
bers refer  to  pages  of  the  fifty-third  edition  of 
"Science  and  Health,"  unless  otherwise  ex- 
plained. 

SOURCES    OF    DOCTRINE. 

Doubtless  Mrs.  Eddy  is  the  source  of  Christian 
Science ;  though  she  claims  to  have  found  much 
of  it  in  the  Bible.  She  says:  "In  following 
these  leadings  of  Scientific  revelation,  the  Bible 

23 


24  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

was  my  only  text-book.  The  Scriptures  were 
illumined,  reason  and  revelation  were  reconciled, 
and  afterwards  the  truth  of  Christian  Science  was 
demonstrated"  (page  4).  How  thoroughly  she 
searched  the  scriptures  may  be  inferred  from  her 
comments,  as,  for  instance,  the  following:  "Jesus 
said  of  Lazarus:  'He  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth.' 
He  restored  Lazarus  by  the  understanding  that 
he  had  never  died,  not  by  an  admission  that  his 
body  had  died  and  then  lived  again.  Had  Jesus 
believed  that  Lazarus  had  lived  or  died  in  his 
body,  he  would  have  stood  on  the  same  plane  of 
belief  with  those  who  buried  the  body;  and  he 
could  not  therefore  have  resuscitated  it"  (page 
241).  We  hardly  need  to  refresh  our  recollection 
of  John  11:  13,  14,  to  feel  that  there  is  a  mistake 
somewhere:  "Howbeit  Jesus  spake  of  his  death, 
but  they  thought  that  he  had  spoken  of  taking 
rest  in  sleep.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  them  plainly : 
Lazarus  is  dead." 

Like  Swedenborg,  Mrs.  Eddy  finds  the  spiritual 
sense  of  scripture  by  correspondences.  Her  cor- 
respondences are  not  the  same  as  Swedenborg's, 
but  equally  wonderful.  Adam  is  error;  angels, 
messages,  not  messengers;  burial,  annihilation; 
Dan,  animal  magnetism;  Gihon,  the  rights  of 
woman  acknowledged — morally,  civilly,  socially; 
Euphrates,  Divine  Science  encompassing  the 
universe  and  man;  and  Holy  Spirit,  Christian 
Science.  New  Jerusalem,  also,  is  Divine  Sci- 
ence. For  a  specimen,  she  reads,  ''Forgive  us  our 
debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors,"  as  "Truth  will 


ITS  THEOLOGY  25 

destroy  the  claims  of  error' '  (page  322).  Nor  does 
she  leave  her  pupils  to  wander  about  without  a 
guide  and  lost  in  this  Brobdingnag  country,  but 
gives  them  a  "Key  to  the  Scriptures,"  in  which, 
at  Genesis  2  :  6,  she  says:  "The  continued  account 
[of  the  creation]  is  mortal  and  material."  "The 
history  of  error  or  matter,  if  veritable,  would  set 
aside  the  omnipotence  of  Spirit ;  but  it  is  the  false 
history  in  contradistinction  from  the  true"  (page 
502).  Such  jugglery  is  a  confession  of  judgment. 
The  Bible  does  not  teach  Christian  Science;  Mrs. 
Eddy  is  the  source;  she  admits  that  she  has 
written  all  of  it  in  one  book,  "Science  and 
Health";  the  whole  Euphrates  flows  in  this  one 
channel.  However,  before  we  congratulate  our- 
selves too  heartily  on  finding  all  in  one  book,  we 
should  see  the  book.  "Science  and  Health"  may 
be  scientific,  but  is  hardly  "knowledge  duly 
arranged."  Confusion,  instead  of  humility,  justi- 
fies the  statement  which  its  author  somewhere 
makes,  that  Christian  Scientists  have  "religious 
tenets"  but  not  "doctrinal  beliefs." 

DOCTRINE    OF    GOD. 

Begging  Mohammed's  pardon,  there  is  no  God 
but   "Principle,"    "Mind,"    "Love,"    and    Mrs. 
Eddy  is  its,  his,  her,  prophet:  "God  is  the  Prin- 
ciple   of    Christian    Science"    (page    7).      "The 
Principle  of  Divine  Metaphysics  is  God"  (page  5).  . 
"God  is  divine   Principle,    Supreme   incorporeal,' 
Being,    Mind,   Spirit,   Life,  Truth,  Love"   (page! 
449)- 


26  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

•*God  is  all"  (page  7).  The  allness  of  I  Cor. 
15:28 — *'that  God  may  be  all" — is  order;  but 
Christian  Science  "allness"  is  substance  and  self- 
hood. _  It  blasphemously  confuses  finite  souls  with 
God:  "The  term  souls  or  spirits  is  as  improper 
as  the  term  gods.  Soul  or  Spirit  signifies  Deity, 
and  nothing  else.  There  is  no  finite  soul  or 
spirit"  (page  450).  "Divine  Metaphysics,  as 
revealed  to  my  understanding,  shows  me  that  all 
is  Mind,  and  that  Mind  is  God,  omnipotent,  omni- 
present, omniscient, — having  all  power,  all  pres- 
ence, all  Science"  (page  171).  "The  Scriptures 
say  that  God  is  all-in-all.  From  this  it  follows 
that  nothing  possesses  reality  or  existence  except 
Mind,  God"  (page  226).  "The  world  believes  in 
many  persons;  but  if  God  is  personal,  there  is 
but  one  person,  because  there  is  but  one  God" 
(page  498). _ 

Since  Mrs.  Eddy  raises  the  question  of  person- 
ality, we  press  it:  is  her  god  a  person?  Here  she 
retreats  into  the  mists  of  Hamilton's  philosophy 
of  the  Unconditioned  and  answers:  "If  the  term 
personality  as  applied  to  God,  means  infinite  per- 
sonality, then  God  is  personal  Being — in  this 
sense,  but  not  in  the  lower  sense"  (page  10). 
But  even  Mrs.  Eddy's  self-consciousness  is  too 
strong  for  imagination  and  reverses  the  alter- 
native :  she  assumes  that  we  are  persons,  and  this 
god  only  a  medical  prescription.  Hence  a 
patient,  writing  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  says:  "Her  cures 
are  not  the  result  of  medicine,  spiritualism  or 
mesmerism,   but   the  application  of    a  Principle 


ITS  THEOLOGY  27 

that  she  understands"  (page  87).  The  gender  of 
this  supreme  being  is,  on  the  whole,  feminine: 
**We  have  not  as  much  authority,  in  Divine 
Science,  for  considering  God  masculine,  as  we 
have  for  considering  him  feminine,  for  love 
imparts  the  highest  idea  of  Deity"  (page  498). 

There  is  no  personal  trinity:  "The  theory  of 
three  persons^  in  one  God  (that  is,  a  personal 
Trinity,  or  Tri-unity)  suggests  heathen  gods, 
rather  than  one  ever-present  i  am"  (page  152)./ 
**Life,  Truth  and  Love  constitute  the  triune  God, 
or  triply  divine  Principle.  They  represent  a; 
Trinity  in  unity,  three  in  one,  the  same  in' 
essence,  though  multiform  in  office:  God  the; 
Father;  Jesus  the  type  of  Sonship,  Divine,- 
Science,  or  the  Holy  Comforter"  (page  227). 

The  Christology  of  the  Bible  is  the  chief  differ- 
entiating factor  of  Christian  theology — "Hereby 
know  ye  the  Spirit  of  God :  every  spirit  which 
confesseth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is 
of  God;  and  every  spirit  which  confesseth  not 
Jesus  is  not  of  God :  and  this  is  the  spirit  of  the 
antichrist,  whereof  ye  have  heard  that  it  cometh; 
and  now  it  is  in  the  world"  (I  John  4:  2,  3).  As 
Ithuriel  touched  the  toad  "squat  close  to  the  ear 
of  Eve,"  and  Satan  started  up  "discovered  and 
expressed, ' '  so  touch  Christian  Science  with  this 
verse  of  "celestial  temper,"  and  see  what  starts 
up.  It  appears  in  such  statements  as  the  follow- 
ing: "Wearing  in  part  a  human  form  (that  is,  as 
it  seemed  to  mortal  view),  being  conceived  by  a 
human  mother,  Jesus  was  the  mediator  between 


l^' 


28  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

'  Spirit  and  the  flesh,  between  Truth  and  error" 
(page  2ii).  "Flesh"  is  "an  illusion"  (page  565). 
It  is  too  evident   that  Christian  Science   denies 

i  Jesus  Christ  having  come  in  flesh. 

It  may  be  seen  that  Jesus  Christ  was  a  Christian 
Scientist,  since  Mrs.  Eddy,  referring  to  herself, 
says:  "So  far  as  her  knowledge  of  this  matter 
extends  no  other  person  has  ever  given  Christian 
Science  to  the  world;  but  to  those  natural  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  the  ancient  worthies,  and  to  Jesus 
the  Christ,  God  certainly  revealed  its  Spirit,  if  not 
the  absolute  letter"  (page  467),  But  he  was  not 
las  far  advanced  as  he  might  have  beeiv  for, 
again,  referring  to  him,  Mrs.  Eddy  says: A* Had 
wisdom  characterized  all  his  sayings,  he  would 
not  have  prophesied  his  own  death  and  therefore 
hastened  it. 'J^  ("Miscellaneous  Writings,"  six- 
teenth edition,  page  84.)  He  was,  it  is  allowed, 
begotten  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  Christian  Science,  and  his  conception  was 
natural:  "Miracles  are  impossible  in  Scienc.e, 
and  here  it  takes  issue  with  popular  religions" 
(page  249).  "The  illumination  of  Mary's  spiritual 
sense  put  to  silence  material  law,  and  its  order  of 
generation,  and  brought  forth  her  child  by  the 
revelation  of  Truth,  demonstrating  God  as  the 
Father  of  men"  (page  334).  "The  time  cometh 
when  the  spiritual  origin  of  man,  the  Science 
which  ushered  Jesus  into  human  presence,  will  be 
understood  and  demonstrated"  (page  221). 
"Until  it  is  learned  that  generation  rests  on  no 
sexual   basis,  let  marriage  continue,   and  let  us 


ITS  THEOLOGY  29 

permit  no  such  disregard  of  law  as  may  lead  to  a 
worse  state  of  society  than  now  exists"  (page  274). 
The  burial  of  Jesus  was  his  annihilation;  he 
ceased  forever  to  exist:  "The  Invisible  Christ 
was  incorporeal,  whereas  Jesus  was  a  corporeal  or 
bodily  existence.  This  dual  personality  of  the 
seen  and  the  unseen,  the  Jesus  and  the  Christ, 
continued  until  the  Master's  ascension;  and  then 
the  human,  the  corporeal  concept,  or  Jesus,  disap- 
peared ;  while  the  invisible,  the  spiritual  idea,  or 
the  Christ,  continued  to  exist  in  the  eternal  order 
of  Divine  Science,  taking  away  the  sins  of  the 
.world,  as  the  Christ  had  always  done,  even  before 
the  human  Jesus  was  incarnate  to  mortal  eyes" 
(page  229). 

DOCTRINE    OF    MAN. 

Mrs.  Eddy  distinguishes  "man,"  "immortals" 
and  "mortals"  from  each  other. 

"Man"  has  always  been  and  will  never  cease  to^ 
be,  and  beside  him  there  is  no  other.      He  is  the   j 
genus  of  which  "immortals' '  and  other  divine  ideas 
are  species  and  individuals,  the  product  of  a  final 
synthesis  and  the  grandest  achievement  of  realism. 
He  is  God's  compound  and  infinite  idea  or  reflec- 
tion, and,  like  an  individual  "immortal,"  is,  also,  '■■ 
the  mirror  that  reflects :  "Separated  from  man, who  , 
expresses  it,  Spirit" — God — "would  be  a  nonen-  j 
tity.   Man  divorced  from  Spirit  would  be  equally  a  j 
nonentity;    but  there  is,   there  can  be,  no  such   j 
division,  for  man  is  co-existent  with  God"  (page 
461).     In  short,  this  "man"  is  to  this  god  as  a  - 


30  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

\     construction  company  to  a  railroad — identical  for 
'     profits,  but  distinct  for  losses. 

''Immortals"  are  the  individual  ideas,  mirrors 
and  reflections  of  the  god.  The  "reflection' '  notion 
seems  to  be  a  misuse  of  the  "brightness"  of  Heb. 
1:3.  Every  "immortal"  has  always  been  and 
will  never  cease  to  be,  and  is  absolutely  per- 
fect. They  are  the  triumph  of  idealism.  On 
the  one  hand  they  are  the  stuff  that  "man"  is 
made  of,  and  on  the  other  the  doubles  of  "mor- 
tals." 

"Mortals,"  or  "mortal  mind,"  in  the  nomencla- 
ture  of    Christian     Science,    are    simply  human 
.  Y  beings,  as  we  know  ourselves  and  others — body, 

I  \       ■     soul  and  spirit :     "Mortals  will  disappear,  and  im- 
,  ^\  ^     mortals,  or  the  children  of  God,  will  appear  as  the 
\\         'only  and  eternal  verities  of  man.     Mortals  are  not 
s\    \      %'  fallen  children  of  God.     They  never  had  a  perfect 
^^\  I  state  of  Being,  which  may   subsequently  be  re- 
'   '  '      gained.  They  were  from  the  beginning  of  mortal 
history,  conceived  in  sin  and  brought  forth  in  in- 
iquity. Mortals  are  material  falsities.   In  the  words 
of  Paul,  they  are  without  hope  and  without  God 
in  the  world.     They  are  errors,  made  up  of  sin, 
sickness  and  death,  which  must  disappear  to  give 
place  to  the  facts  which  belong  to  immortal  man" 
(page  460).     "Temporal  life  is  a  false  sense  of 
existence"   (page  16).     "Think  of  thyself  as  the 
orange  just  eaten,  of  which  only  the  pleasant  idea 
is  left"  (page  257). 

Unlike    Frankenstein's    creature,    all    of    Mrs.\ 
Eddy's  men  and  women  have  good  characters — or  ^ 


ITS  THEOLOGY  31 

no  characters:  "Sin  and  mortality"  are  "nativei 
nothingness"  (page  177).  "A  wicked  man  isi 
little  else  than  a  creature  of  error"  (page  185).       * 

This  anthropology  is  materialism  reversed  but 
not  converted,  for  to  say  that  matter  is  mental  is 
practically  the  same  as  to  say  that  mind  is 
material:  *' Electricity  is  not  a  vital  fluid,  but  the 
least  material  form  of  human  consciousness — the 
material  thought  essence,  which  forms  the  link 
between  matter  and  mortal  mind"  (page  189). 
Matter  is  the  "lower  substratum"  of  mortal  mind 
(page  93).  "The  fading  forms  of  matter  are  the 
fleeting  thoughts  of  the  human  mind"  (page  160). 
"Nothing  we  can  say  or  believe  regarding  matter 
is  true,  except  that  matter  is  unreal,  and  is  there- 
fore a  belief,  which  has  its  beginning  and  ending" 
(page  173). 

As  a  cap-sheaf  tenet,  we  are  all  insane:  "There 
is  a  universal  insanity,  which  mistakes  fable  for 
fact  throughout  the  entire  round  of  the  material 
senses;  but  this  general  craze  cannot,  in  a 
spiritual  diagnosis,  shield  the  individual  case  from 
the  special  name  of  insanity.  Those  unfortunate 
people  who  are  committed  to  insane  asylums 
are  only  so  many  well-defined  instances  of  the 
baneful  effects  of  illusion  on  mortal  minds  and 
bodies"  (page  406).  It  is  hardly  to  be  won- 
dered at. 

As  the  limits  of  this  paper  preclude  extended 
comments,  we  must  trust  that  these  vices  of  the 
mind  are  monsters  of  "so  frightful  mien  as  to  be 
hated"  need  "but  to  be  seen";   but  we  cannot 


32   SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

refrain,  here,  from_calHnj[_^tten^i^^  toa  fatal  gap 
in  the  system.  It  lies  between  "mortals"  and 
* 'immortals."  "Mortals,"  though,  like  lago's 
purse,  ** something,  nothing,"  are  bad,  and  so 
cannot  have  sprung  from  the  ** immortals,"  or 
from  the  "man"  or  from  the  god.  This  is  a 
fundamental  tenet:  *'It_i^  self-evident  that  this 
Mind,  or  Divine  Principle,  can  produce  nothing 
/unlike  Itself — Himself,  Herself"  (thirtieth  edi- 
,V'  tion).  What  has  produced  mortals?  In  what 
do  they  inhere?  Perhaps  it  is  a  case  of  spon- 
taneous combustion.  There  is  neither  source  nor 
support  for  them:  "The  immortal  never  produces 
the  mortal,  and  Good  cannot  result  in  evil" 
(page  173).  The  earth  rests  on  the  elephant,  and' 
the  elephant  stands  on  the  turtle.  Mrs.  Eddy 
may  go  on  shoring  up  the  system,  but  when  she 
stops  the  whole  structure  falls  in  ruins. 

DOCTRINE    OF    SALVATION. 

Full  Christian  Science  salvation  is  a  repentance 
from  the  nothingness  of  mortal  beliefs  to  the 
somethingness  of  divine  ideas.  Jesus  attained  it. 
When  his  disciples  thought  his  body  was  lying 
pale  and  cold  in  Joseph's  tomb,  he  was  only  hid- 
ing there,  studying  Christian  Science:  "The 
lonely  precincts  of  the  tomb  gave  Jesus  a  refuge 
from  his  foes,  and  a  place  in  which  to  solve  the 
great  problem  of  Being"  (page  349).  Every  one 
will,  eventually,  reach  it:  "The  dream  that 
matter  and  error  are  something,  must  yield  to 
reason  and  revelation.     Then  mortals  will  behold 


^^'  ^  ^' 


ITS  THEOLOGY  33 

its  nothingness,  and  sickness  and  sin  will  disap- 
pear to  their  vision"  (page  293). 

But  neither  salvation  nor  anything  else  is 
effected  by  supplicatory  prayer:  "God  is  not 
influenced  by  man"  (page  313).  "Who  would 
stand  before  a  blackboard  and  pray  the  principle 
of  mathematics  to  work  out  the  problem?  The 
rule  is  alread)^  established,  and  it  is  our  task  to 
work  out  the  solution.  Shall  we  ask  the^  divine 
Principle  of  all  goodness  to  do  his  own  work? 
That  work  was  finished  long  ago ;  and  we  have 
only  to  avail  ourselves  of  God's  rule,  in  order  to 
receive  the  blessing"  (page  308).  Nor  is  one 
saved  by  a  vicarious  atonement:  "Final  deliver- 
ance from  error — whereby  we  rejoice  in  immor- 
tality, boundless  freedom  and  sinless  sense — is 
neither  reached  through  paths  of  flowers,  nor  by 
pinning  one's  faith  to  vicarious  effort"  (page  499, 
thirtieth  edition).  The  means  of  salvation  are 
suffering  and  science,  church  life  and  metaphys- 
ical practice:  "Either  here  or  hereafter,  suffering 
or  Science  must  purge  man  of  false  illusions 
about  life  and  mind,  and  cleanse  him  of  material 
sense  and  self"  (page  482,  thirtieth  edition). 
"The  followers  of  Christ  must  drink  his  cup  for 
centuries  to  come"  (page  483,  thirtieth  edition). 
"Through  discernment  of  the  spiritual  opposite  of 
materiality,  even  the  way  through  Christ,  Truth, 
man  will  reopen  with  the  Key  of  Science,  the 
gates  of  Paradise,  which  human  beliefs  have 
closed,  and  will  find  himself  unfallen,  upright, 
pure  and  free,  not  needing  to  consult  almanacs 


34  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

for  the  probabilities  of  Life,  or  to  study  brain- 
ology  in  order  to  learn  how  much  of  a  man  he  is" 
(page  63). 

But  five  dollars'  worth  of  metaphysical  practice 
is  better  than  a  one-hundred  dollar  order  on  an 
idealized  ''immortal,"  and  healing  is  the  principal 
part  of  salvation.  Indeed,  one  might  think  it  the 
whole,  for  Mrs.  Eddy  says:  "The  term  Christian 
Science  was  introduced  by  the  author  to  designate 
the  Scientific  system  of  Metaphysical  Healing" 
(page  1 7).  The  instruments  of  this  spiritual  surgery 
are  thought-suggestion  and  will-pressure.  When 
the  practitioner  invades  the  sick  man's  common- 
sense,  either  honestly  through  the  gate,  by  spoken 
word,  or  burglariously  over  the  wall,  by  silent, 
present  or  absent  treatment,  the  resultant  trouble 
is  called  ''chemicalization":  "Disease  is  a  fear, 
expressed  not  so  much  by  the  lips  as  in  the  func- 
tions of  the  body"  (page  372).  "The  author 
never  knew  a  patient  who  did  not  recover  when 
the  fear  of  the  disease  was  gone"  (page  376). 
"Destroy  fear,  and  you  end  the  fever"  (page  375). 
"Anodynes,  counter-irritants,  and  depletion  never 
reduce  inflammation;  but  the  Truth  of  Being, 
whispered  into  the  ear  of  mortal  mind,  will  bring 
relief"  (page  373).  "Explain  audibly  to  your 
patients  (as  soon  as  they  can  bear  it)  the  utter 
control  which  Mind  holds  over  the  body"  (page 
415).  "If  the  case  is  that  of  a  young  child  or  an 
infant,  it  needs  to  be  met  mainly  through  the 
parents,  silently  or  audibly  on  the  strictest  rules 
of  Christian  Science"   (page  411)-     "It  is  more 


ITS  THEOLOGY  35 

difficult  to  make  yourself  heard  mentally  when 
others  are  thinking  about  your  patients,  or  con- 
versing with  them"  (page  422).  ''Like  Jesus, 
the  healer  should  speak  to  disease  as  one  having 
authority  over  it,  leaving  Soul  to  master  the  false 
evidences  of  the  corporeal  senses,  and  assert  its 
claims  over  mortality  and  sickness"  (page  393). 
Mrs.  Eddy  appeals  to  the  recovery  of  the  sick  to 
prove  that  Christian  Science  is  true,  but  unfor- 
tunately admits  that  "the  symptoms  of  disease" 
may  be  relieved  by  deception  and  error: 
"Homoeopathic  remedies,  sometimes  not  contain- 
ing a  particle  of  medicine,  are  known  to  relieve 
the  symptoms  of  disease"  (page  397). 

LAST    THINGS. 

Natural  death  is  but  a  mortal  illusion,  and  may 
be  foHoweTBy  ahTfrtermedtatB  S^^^^^ 
the  earthly  condition.  The  coming  of  Christ  is  an 
awakening  from  the  mortal  dream  that  sin  and 
sickness  are  realities;  but  neither  Christ  nor 
other  ' '  Immortal ' '  ever  returns  to  earth.  There  is 
nQ_finalJjMgment,^and  God  will  never  ^umsh 
sinners.  The  saved  condition~~tEe  grand  con- 
sumTnatron7  is  a  sublime  lonesomeness:  "Would 
existence  be  to  you  a  blank  without  personal 
friends?  Then  the  time  cometh  when  you  will  be 
solitary,  left  without  sympathy  and  alone;  but 
the  human  vacuum  is  to  be  filled  with  divine 
Love"  (page  162). 

The  theology  of  Christian  Science^  taken  as  a 
whole,   is   doubtless  a  kind  of  pantheism.     The 


36  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON    CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

mortal-immortal-man-goddess  is  all.  But  what 
kind  of  a  creatm'e  is  she?  We  discern  her  chief 
features  clearly  enough.  Disclaiming  ridicule, 
that  which  is  specially  the  god  is  the  intelligence ; 
"man"  is  the  whole  form — muscles,  tissues,  in- 
teguments; ''immortals"  are  innumerable  arms, 
reaching  out  forever  into  imdiscovered  spaces; 
and  "mortals"  are  grotesque  shadows  of  all  that 
is  tangible,  specters  of  Brocken,  on  a  background 
of  mist. 


Ill 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE 

BY    PRES.    WILLIAM    H.   P.    FAUNCE,   D.  D. 

All  persons  familiar  with  the  intellectual  life 
of  our  time  are  conscious  of  a  wave  of  "new 
thought"  now  sweeping  over  this  country.  This 
thought  assumes  Protean  forms,  and  manifests 
itself  in  a  mass  of  literature  of  all  shades  from  the 
sublime  to  the  ridiculous.  The_ing^emen.t  has^a.. 
two-fold  origin.  _0n  the  one  hand,  it  comes  from 
the  German  idealism  of  Hegel  and  Fichte,  which 
(mediated  by  Thomas  Hill  Green)  has  at  last 
filtered  down  through  all  the  strata  of  society  and 
reached  the  average  man.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
comes  from  contact  with  the  religions  of  the 
Orient,  and  a  new  appreciation  of  their  mystic 
peace  and  brooding  calm. 

A  foretaste  of  this  **new  thought"  appeared  in 
the  New  England  Transcendentalism  of  fifty 
years  ago;  it  achieved  its  brightest  literary 
expression  in  Emerson,  and  its  passing  embodi- 
ment in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment.  But  that 
movement  was  chiefly  confined  to  New  England. 
The  present  movement — a  reaction  from  the 
deistic  view  of  the  world  which  has  long  pervaded 

37 


38  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

both  science  and  theology — covers  the  entire 
country,  and  is  putting  forth  a  quantity  of  litera- 
ture of  whose  extent  few  are  aware.  The  philos- 
ophy underlying  the  whole  is  optimistic  and 
idealistic,  and  often  claims  and  produces  large 
results  in  bodily  healing.  Mrs.  Eddy  is  only  one 
— the  most  successful  one — of  scores  of  teachers 
in  this  country  who  are  now  insisting  on  the 
power  of  thought  to  change  life,  and  the  imma- 
nence of  God  in  such  a  sense  that  pain  and  grief 
and  sin  can  be  practically  ignored. 

A    CRUDE    IDEALISM. 

Most  of  these  teachers  are  destitute  of  philo- 
sophical training,  and  are  putting  forth  crude 
systems  more  wonderful  than  Joseph's  coat  which 
was  7iot  "of  many  colors."  "They  have  been  at 
a  great  feast  of  languages  and  stolen  the  scraps." 
They  strongly  antagonize  each  other,  and  unite 
only  in  antagonizing  both  materialism  and 
scholastic  orthodoxy.  Oriental  importations,  the 
flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the  Parliament  of  Religions, 
wander  through  the  country,  unfolding  outworn 
theories  of  the  Orient  as  the  latest  fad  of  the 
Occident.  Indian  Swamis  enter  Boston  parlors 
and  instruct  companies  of  adoring  women  in  the 
science  of  mist  and  moonbeams.  Some  of  Mrs. 
Eddy's  pupils,  weary  of  her  personal  control, 
have  revolted  and  set  up  schools  of  their  own. 
"Metaphysical  healing"  is  largely  practiced  in  the 
eastern  states  by  those  who  utterly  reject  Chris- 
tian Science.     On  a  much  higher  intellectual  level 


ITS   PHILOSOPHY  39 

are  the  books  of  Dr.  Dresser,  Ralph  Waldo  Trine 
and  Henry  Wood,  all  having  an  extraordinary 
sale,  all  insisting  that  "there  is  nothing  either 
good  or  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  so,"  all  giving 
an  idealistic  and  spiritual  interpretation  of  the 
universe,  and  all  succeeding  in  lifting  from  scores 
of  weary  souls  a  burden  of  care  and  fear  and  pain 
which  we  have  been  taught  is  inalienable  from 
human  life.  All  of  these  teachers  unite  in  reject- 
ing the  eighteenth-century  conception  of  God  as 
an  "absentee,"  or  as  an  "occasional  visitor,"  or 
as  a  "magnified  Lord  Shaftesbury";  and  when 
they  are  theists  in  any  real  sense,  affirm  that 
God  is  immanent  in  the  human  soul,  and  that  if 
we  will  but  "practice  his  presence"  we  shall  be 
delivered  from  all  the  ills  consequent  on  faith  in 
a  distant  deity.  We  may  at  least  rejoice  that  the 
tendencies  of  our  time  are  no  longer  toward  dis- 
belief in  a  spiritual  world.  So  far  has  the  pendu- 
lum swung,  that  the  same  popular  literature 
which,  thirty  years  ago,  was  trying  to  believe 
that  "thought  is  a  secretion  of  the  brain,"  now 
gravely  affirms  that  the  brain  is  a  figment  of 
thought ! 

What,  now,  is  the  particular  phase  of  this 
thought  embodied  in  "Christian  Science"?  The 
history  of  the  movement  has  been  given  in  a 
previous  article.  We  are  concerned  now  only 
with  its  philosophy,  which  is  most  certainly  a  rare 
collection  of  shreds  and  patches.  Among  the 
many  notions  inconsistently  united  we  may  dis- 
tinguish a  few  dominant  thoughts. 


40  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

1.  The  idealistic  conception  of  matter.  A 
modern  teacher  has  called  Christian  Science  "an 
incomplete  misconception  of  Berkeleyanism. " 
But  good  Bishop  Berkeley's  faith  in  Christianity 
was  not  hindered  in  the  least  by  his  philosophic 
explanation  of  the  material  universe.  In  order 
to  combat  atheism  and  materialism,  he  asserted 
and  believed  that  the  apparently  external  world 
exists  only  in  our  own  idea,  and  that  minds  alone 
have  real  existence  This  is  a  philosophic  view 
which  will  always  have  its  advocates,  and  need 
not  be  discussed  here.  All  human  beings  must 
act  as  if  matter  did  exists  and  the  speculative 
denial  has  little  influence  on  life.  If  the  Chris- 
tian Scientist  wishes  to  build  a  house,  he  must 
treat  bricks,  mortar  and  timber  just  as  every 
other  man  treats  them,  even  though  he  honestly 
believes  that  the  bricks  are  all  in  his  own  brain. 
Only  in  the  treatment  of  the  human  body  does 
the  idealism  have  practical  consequences.  If  a 
man  believes  that  his  body  is  the  pure  expression 
and  even  the  creation  of  mind,  he  will  certainly 
endeavor  to  shape  and  control  that  body  mainly 
through  the  maintenance  of  m.ental  conditions. 

2.  A  monistic  conception  of  God  and  his  world, 
ever  verging  into  pantheism.  The  publication  of 
Dr.  Strong's  "Ethical  Monism"  was  one  of  the 
most  significant  events  in  the  history  of  Christian 
thought  in  this  countr3\  It  showed  how  great  is 
the  present  reaction  from  a  mechanical  and 
external  theology,  and  how  even  the  thinkers  who 
have  stood  most  stoutly  for  the  reality  of  the  soul, 


ITS  PHILOSOPHY  4I 

of  sin,  and  of  redemption,  are  now  passionately 
demanding  some  unifying  conception  of  the 
world-order.  Dr.  Strong  is  abundantly  able  to 
safeguard  his  monism;  but  Mrs.  Eddy  goes 
straight  over  into  the  camp  of  those  who  deny 
personality  to  God,  and  all  real  freedom  and 
responsibility  to  man.  She  explicitly  denies  that 
God  is  personal.  Her  denial  is  meant  as  a  pro- 
test against  anthropomorphism ;  but  it  goes  so  far 
as  to  make  God  a  metaphysical  abstraction  or 
principle. 

DENIES    DIVINE    PERSONALITY. 


A  young  man  recently  came  to  me  who  had 
gone  through  Christian  Science  into  Atheism.  I 
asked  him  to  describe  the  path  he  had  passed  over. 
He  answered:  "The  Christian  Science  teacher 
began  by  thoroughly  persuading  me  that  God  is 
not  personal,  but  is  pure  'Principle.'  After  some  j 
months  I  accepted  that,  and  then  I  said  to  myself :  -  ^ 
*What  is  a  principle?  Does  it  have  real  exist- 
ence? Is  it  an  entity  or  reality?'  I  soon  saw 
that  a  'principle'  is  simply  an  idea  of  my  own 
mind,  and  when  the  Scientist  dissolved  my  God 
into  'principle'  I  ceased  to  believe  in  any  God 
whatever.     I  now  believe  simply  in  myself." 

Mrs.  Eddy  answers  the  question,  "What  is 
God?"  as  follows:  "God  is  divine  Principle, 
supreme  incorporeal  Being,  Mind,  Spirit,  Soul, 
Truth,  Love."  At  the  head  of  this  confusing  list 
of  alleged  synonyms  she  puts  Principle,  as  being 
the  most   thoroughly  de-personalized    term,  and 


42  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

hence  best  suited  to  her  purpose.     But  let  us  ask 

her  to  define  more  closely.     Does  her  God  possess 

.  consciousness,  will,  purpose?     Is  he  so  like  to  the 

I  noblest  earthly  father  that  our  highest  name  for 

|him  is  Heavenly  Father,  and  that  we  can   com- 

jmune  with  him,  pray  to  him?     To  all  this  Mrs. 

j  Eddy  must  answer,  No.     To  her  God  one  must 

i'  not  pray,  for  that  would  be  to  acknowledge  him 

;  as   personal.       While    one    might  in   an   unwary 

moment  call  her  God  "Father,"  yet  that  term  is 

omitted  from  her  definition  of  God.     Her  God  is 

** Being,"  but  being  need  not  be  conscious  of  its 

■own  existence,  or  of  ours.     Her  God  is  Truth; 

I  but  truth  is  destitute  of  volition  or  affection  for 

I  man.     Her   God   is  Life;  but  life   in   moss  and 

I  tree  is  unconscious  and  unintelligent.      Her  God 

I  is  Love ;  but  not  the  love  which  can  answer  any 

'request  for  aid.     Her  God  is  Mind,  Spirit,  Soul, 

provided  that  we  interpret   those  words  as  syn- 

jonyms  of  unconscious  "principle." 

ELASTIC    TERMS. 

'     Much  of  the  success  of  Christian  Science  is  due 

f'to  the  fact  that  its  vague  phraseology  is  equally 
acceptable  to  the  evangelical  Christian  and  to  the 

1  atheist.  The  average  Christian,  approaching  the 
Christian  Science  creed  on  one   side,  hears  that 

I  God  is  "Spirit,  omnipresent  and  eternal,"  and  at 
once  accepts  the  teaching.  The  atheist,  coming 
up  on  the  other  side,  hears  that  the  only  God  is 
"principle,  truth,  harmony,"  and  he  can  accept  it 
without  the  slightest  change  of  position.     I  would 


ITS  PHILOSOPHY  43 

not  charge  conscious  duplicity  upon  Christian  Sci- 
ence teachers.  But  I  do  know  that  they  will  say 
to  the  simple-minded  Christian:  "We  of  course 
believe  in  prayer,  and  we  use  the  Lord's  prayer 
at  every  service ;"  while  to  the  antagonist  of  Chris- 
tianity they  will  say:  "You  know  in  what  sense  we 
believe  in  prayer — it  is  by  affirming  Principle. ' ' 

When  Mrs.  Eddy  in  her  reaction  from  deism 
joins  Theodore  Parker  in  denying  personality  to 
God,  she  makes  her  capital  blunder  out  of  which 
all  other  blunders  spring.  She  thinks  personality 
means  limitation  and  corporeality.  But  Dr. 
Martineau  has  well  said :  "You  cannot  deny  God's 
personality  without  sacrificing  his  infinitude :  for 
there  is  a  mode  of  action — the  preferential— ih& 
very  mode  which  distinguishes  rational  beings — 
from  which  you  exclude  him."  Since  Mrs. 
Eddy's  deity  is  incapable  of  preferring  and  will- 
ing and  seeking  moral  ends  and  communing  with 
his  children,  since  he  is  less  than  personal^  he  is 
less  than  the  Christian  God,  the  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

3.  Of  course  such  a  faith  must  issue  in'  optim- 
ism. Pain  vanishes,  since  God  is  incapable  of 
pain,  and  God  is  the  only  reality.  Mrs.  Eddy  is 
as  contemptuous  toward  pain  as  was  Marcus 
Aurelius  when  he  wrote:  "Do  not  suppose  you 
are  hurt  and  your  complaint  ceases.  Cease  your 
complaint  and  you  are  not  hurt."  Indeed,  her 
steadfast  denial,  i.  e.,  her  determination  to 
ignore,  has  close  affinity  with  ancient  stoicism. 
There    is    nothing    new    under    the  sun.      The 


/ 


y     44  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

Emersonian  oracle  has  long  been  telling  lis  that 
*'good  is  positive,  evil  only  privative"  ;  Browning 
has  long  been  crying,  "All's  right  with  the 
world. ' '  But  what  the  stoics  and  the  poets  have 
always  affirmed  as  ideally  true,  Christian  Science 
turns  into  bald  prose  propositions,  telling  us  that, 
by  refusing  to  think  of  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to, 
we  may  destroy  their  phantasmagorial  existence. 
Still  further  goes  this  optimism.  It  denies  that 
sin  exists,  save  in  our  thought  of  it,  i.  e.,  in 
** mortal  mind."  It  declares  that  "man  is 
incapable  of  sin,  sickness  and  death,  inasmuch  as 
he  derives  his  essence  from  God,  and  possesses 
not  a  single  original,  or  underived,  power." 
Here  again  we  are  misled  by  alleged  synonyms. 
Certainly  man  has  no  "underived"  power;  but 
has  he  no  "original"  power?  Has  he  no  power 
to  originate  action,  to  determine  some  events,  to 
choose  between  good  and  evil?  If  not,  we  are 
landed  at  once  in  the  pantheism  where  good  and 
evil  coalesce  in  universal  being.  The  Christian 
church  has  always  believed  in  a  God  not  to  be 
identified  with  his  own  creation,  a  God  distinct, 
though  not  separate  from  his  children,  a  God  with 

power 

"To  create  man,  and  then  leave  him 
Able,  his  own  word  saith,  to  grieve  him." 

Mrs.   Eddy  denies  that  man  is  able  to  grieve 

God,  both  because  God  is  incapable  of  grief  or  any 

other    emotion,    and   because   all  human   sin   is 

apparent  only,    and   in    reality  does   not    exist. 

\  Such  teaching  is    exceedingly  perilous    to    the 


ITS   PHILOSOPHY  45 

"j  moral  life.     It  coincides  with  the  teaching  of  the 
English  Antinomians  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
who   affirmed  that  "the  feelings  of  conscience, 
which  tell  them  that  sin  is  theirs,  arise  from  a 
want  of  knowing  the  truth. ' '     In  the  view  of  Chris-7         . 
tian  Science,  since  man  is  incapable  of  sin,  con-/  .^ 
viction  of  sin  is  a  dream,  and  redemption  from  it/    v. 
an  impossibility.     Christ  therefore  is  the  "Way J  '^ 
shower,"   no  longer  himself  the  Way.     When  a( 
leading   Christian   Scientist   said  to  me:    "Mrs." 
Eddy  is  the  way  to  God,"  I  answered,  "I  thought 
Christ  was  the  Way."     "But  Christ,  you  know, 
is  dead,"  she  answered,  "and  Mrs.  Eddy  is  now 
alive."     "But  Mrs.  Eddy  must  soon  die,  and  who 
then  will  be  the  way?"     "Well,  we  do  not  think 
that    Mrs.     Eddy    will — what  you    call   die;    we 
expect   she   will — dissolve — into — the  life  of  the 
universe!"      Could    optimism   further   go?      Yet 
men  call  this  age — the  age  of  Keely  and  Mrs. 
Eddy — a  materialistic  age ! 

TWO    TRUTHS    AFFIRMED. 

Let  me  now  mention  briefly  some  of  the  strong 
and  the  weak  elements  in  this  strange  Christian 
Science  creed. 

It  is  strong  in  its  clear  realization  of  the  imma- 
nence of  God.  God  is  not  only  "in  his  heaven," 
but  God  is  in  his  world.  The  average  Christian 
church  is  still  shy  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  leaving  that  to  Northfield  and  Keswick, 
and  believes  only  in  a  far-away  deity  who  occa- 
sionally has  interfered  with  his  world  to  work  a 


46  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCB 

miracle.  The  average  Christian  church  believes 
in  an  inspiration  which  ceased  about  loo  A.  D., 
and  miracles  which  ceased  about  300  A.  D.,  and 
in  an  interpretation  of  the  Bible  which  makes  it 
the  story  of  what  was  but  no  longer  is.  Christian 
Science  affirms  that  God  is  as  near  his  world 
to-day  as  in  any  age,  and  performing  all  the 
wonders  now  that  he  ever  performed.  In  this  it 
agrees  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  is  a 
standing  reproach  to  Protestant  unbelief. 

Christian  Science  has  undoubtedly  gotten  hold 
of  a  great  truth  in  its  affirmation  that  the  best 
way  to  heal  the  body  is  through  the  mind.  The 
principle  which  underlies  all  these  various  forms 
of  healing,  "metaphysical,"  ** mental,"  "faith," 
or  "Christian  Science"  healing,  is  the  same,  as 
Dr.  Buckley  has  clearly  shown,  or  Mr.  Hudson  in 
his  "Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena."  If  we 
believe  that  the  mind  is  more  than  the  body,  and 
that  all  our  minds  are  in  contact  with  the  infinite 
Mind,  why  should  we  not,  when  afflicted  with 
bodily  disorder,  go  first,  not  to  the  druggist,  but 
to  some  friend  of  strong  mental  and  spiritual 
powers?  If  we  believe  in  prayer,  why  should  we 
not  pray  to  that  Spirit  in  which  we  "live  and 
move  and  have  our  being"?  Medicine  has  long 
treated  the  mind  through  the  body;  now  let  it 
show  as  much  zeal  in  treating  the  body 
through  the  mind.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Prof. 
James,  of  Harvard  University,  has  recently 
defended  the  Christian  Scientists  against  the 
enaction  of  an  oppressive  law  by  the  Massachu- 


ITS   PHILOSOPHY  47 

setts  Legislature — not  because  he  can  accept  their 
bizarre  philosophy,  but  because  he  believes  that 
the  power  of  the  mental  over  the  physical  life  is 
greater  than  any  accredited  philosophy  has  been 
willing  to  admit,  and  that  the  possession  of  a 
medical  diploma  does  not  entitle  any  man  to  a 
monopoly  of  healing. 

The  weakness  and  danger  of  Christian  Science 
are  to  be  found,  especially,  in  the  following 
points: 

I.  In  a  quite  unwarranted  use  of  the  Bible,  j 
Mrs.  Eddy  professes  greatest  attachment  to  the 
scriptures,  and  her  followers  are  constant  readers 
of  the  Bible.  Yet  she  selects  only  certain  por-J 
tions  of  the  Bible,  and  commends  those  portions  \ 
only  when  interpreted  allegorically  and  arbi-  1 
trarily.  Thus,  in  commenting  on  Gen.  2 :  7,  she 
mildly  queries:  ''Is  it  the  truth?  or  is  it  a  lie, 
concerning  man  and  God?  It  must  be  the  latter, 
for  God  presently  curses  the  ground."  Mr. 
Ingersoll,  in  elucidating  the  "Mistakes  of  Moses," 
never  condescended  to  such  language.  But  not 
content  with  the  charge  of  falsehood,  she  pro- 
ceeds to  a  little  exegesis  of  her  own.  In  order  to 
prove  that  "Adam"  is  merely  a  name  for  the 
"matter"  which  opposes  "mind,"  she  suggests  to 
her  obedient  followers  a  short  and  easy  method 
with  the  skeptics:  "Divide  the  name  Adam  into 
two  syllables,  and  it  reads,  a  dam  or  obstruc- 
tion." And  the  book  which  contains  this  sample 
of  exegesis  is  supposed  to  be  addressed  to  sane 
men  and  women ! 


4S  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

.        The  Bible  flames  from  beginning  to  end  with  a 

\  passion   for    righteousness,   and   an    indignation 

I  against  iniquity.     To  say  that  man  is  "incapable 

1  of  sin"  is  to  stultify  the  noble  army  of  martyrs, 

to  discredit  all  the  prophets  and  apostles,  and  to 

;  make  the  life  and  death  of  Christ  farcical.     Men 

^may  believe  that  sin  is  temporary,  that  at  last  God 

shall  be  all  in  all,  and  still  follow  the  Christ.     But 

to  say  that  man  is  "incapable  of  sin"  is  to  rob 

man  of  real  freedom  and  responsibility,  and  make 

Christ  only  a  "Way-shower"  instead  of  the  Way. 

2.  Another  danger  lies  in  a  dissolving  of  God 
\  into  a  misty,   tmconscious   abstraction.      In  her 

attempt  to  get  rid  of  anthropomorphism  Mrs, 
Eddy  denies  personality.  But  John  Fiske  has 
truly  said:  "We  are  bound  to  conceive  of  the 
Eternal  Reality  in  terms  of  the  only  reality  that 
we  know,  or  else  refrain  from  conceiving  it  under 
any  form  whatever."  To  ascribe  human  weak- 
ness and  limitation  to  God,  is  indeed  an  error  and 
a  folly.  But  all  the  objects  we  know  are  either 
persons  or  things.  Which  is  Mrs.  Eddy's  God? 
Does  she  believe  in  the  thingness  of  God,  or  the 
personality  of  God?  The  answer  of  her  books  is 
clear — she  believes  in  the  thmgness  of  God,  in  a 
Substance  like  that  of  Spinoza,  incapable  of  pur- 
pose, choice,  or  consciousnesSj  a  Being  whose 
shadowy  self  is  best  described  as  ''Principle." 

MONEY   IS   NOT    DESPISED. 

3.  A  danger  in  this  movement,  which  perhaps 
has  not  yet  developed,  is  the  confusing  of  moral 


ITS  PHILOSOPHY  49 

distinctions  through  the  denial  of  the  reality  of 
evil  I  gladly  bear  witness  to  the  personal 
nobility  and  high-mindedness  of  many  Christian 
Scientists.  I  rejoice  to  find  beauty  in  lives 
whose  creed  I  cannot  accept.  Yet  the  Scientists 
are  often  sorely  put  to  it  to  explain  how  Mrs. 
Eddy  could  charge  each  pupil  $300  for  twelve 
lessons,  or  what  she  does  with  the  vast  revenues 
which  constantly  come  into  her  hands.  The 
usual  explanation  is  that  any  sum  is  small  in 
comparison  with  the  benefits  received,  and  that 
*'all  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life. "  In 
absolute  religious  despotism,  combined  with 
belief  that  one  is  "incapable  of  sin,"  however  we 
may  explain  the  words,  danger  always  lurks. 
The  latest  step  in  this  line,  and  perhaps  the  most 
surprising,  is  the  publication  in  the  Christian 
Science  Weekly  for  January  19  of  the  following 
card  concerning  "Christian  Science  Souvenir 
Spoons":  "On  each  of  these  most  beautiful 
spoons  is  a  motto  in  bas-relief,  that  every  person 
on  earth  needs  to  hold  in  thought.  Mother 
requests  that  Christian  Scientists  shall  not  ask  to 
be  informed  what  this  motto  is,  but  each  Scientist 
shall  purchase  at  least  one  spoon,  and  those  who 
can  afford  it,  one  dozen  spoons,  that  their  families 
may  read  this  motto  at  every  meal,  and  their 
guests  be  made  partakers  of  its  simple  truth. 
(Signed).  Mary  Baker  Eddy."  Probably  one 
outside  the  mystic  circle  should  not  "ask  to  be 
informed"  as  to  the  price  of  these  precious 
spoons;  nor  as  to  the  object  of  the  sale;  nor  as  to 


50  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

the  proceeds  of  the  sale,  if  every  Scientist  of  the 
300,000  claimed  in  this  country  were  to  purchase 
one  or  one  dozen;  nor  as  to  the  results  if  "every 
person  on  earth"  should  seek  after  this  talismanic 
motto,  nor  whether  the  "Christian  Science 
Souvenir  Company"  is  identical  with  the  "Church 
of  Christ,  Scientist."  But  even  one  outside  the 
circle  may  think,  and  marvel,  and  wonder  if  all 
the  followers  of  the  "Mother"  will  approve. 
•'Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the 
spirits  whether  they  are  of  God. ' ' 


IV 

THE  INHERENT  DIFFICULTIES  OF 

CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

BY    J.   W.   CONLEY,   D.D. 

The  one  who  undertakes  to  point  out  the  inher- 
ent difficulties  of  Christian  Science  is  likely  to 
be  told  that  he  has  entirely  failed  in  understand- 
ing- the  subject  discussed.  His  unspiritual  and 
material  view  of  things  has  blinded  him  to  the 
merits  of  the  case,  and  has  led  him  to  see  diffi- 
culties where  none  really  exist.  But  Christian 
Science  must  meet  the  difficulties  in  the  minds  of 
thoughtful,  intelligent  people  in  some  other  way 
than  by  charging  lack  of  mental  acumen  or  of 
spiritual  apprehension.  However  difficult  it  may 
be  to  get  at  the  meaning  of  many  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
ambiguous  statements,  still  it  is  not  a  very  diffi- 
cult matter  to  understand  the  principles  involved 
in  her  teachings.  Many  who  have  been  favorably 
impressed  by  Christian  Science  through  its  more 
attractive  features  have  never  seriously  consid- 
ered the  inherent  difficulties  of  the  system. 

I.  The  infallibility  of  Mrs.  Eddy  may  wel]_ 
claim  attention  first.  While  there  are  several 
new  schools  of  Christian  Science  which  do  not 
accept  the  leadership  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  these  are  not 

51 


53  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

properly  Christian  Science.     If  Mohammedanism 
should   give  up    Mohammed   and   the  Koran,   it 
might  still  retain  some  features  of  the  old  system, 
but  it  v/ould  cease  to  be  Mohammedanism.     Mrs. 
Eddy  clairns^  that  to  her  alone  in  modern  times 
has  been  given  the  revelation  of  tFe  Truth.     She 
says:  ** God  had  been  graciously  fitting  me,  dur- 
ing  many   years,    for    the   reception   of    a   final 
revelation  of  the  absolute  Principle  of  Scientific 
Mind-healing."     The  book  ** Science  and  Health" 
is  a  setting  forth  of  this  "final  revelation"  of  the 
"Absolute   Principle."     To  her   has  been  made 
known  the  true  gospel  which  has  been  hidden  for 
centuries.     In  her  address,  read  at  the  dedication 
of  the  First  Christian  Science  Church  in  Chicago 
in  1897,  she  says:  "It  is  authentically  said  that  an 
expositor  of  the  dates  of  Daniel  fixed  the  year 
1866  or  1867  for  the  return  of  Christ — the  return 
of   the  Spiritual    Idea  to  the  material  earth   or 
antipode  of  heaven.     It  is  a  marked  coincidence 
'that  those  dates  were  the  first  two  years  of  my 
discovery  of  Christian  Science."     Here  she  evi- 
dently claims  that  she  represents  the  second  com- 
ing of  Christ.     The  way  in  which  her  followers 
regard  her  is  set  forth  in  the  following  statement 
explanatory  of   the  fact  that  instead  of   having 
preaching  in   their    services,  they  have  extracts 
read  from  Mrs.  Eddy's  writings:     "The  canonical 
writings,  together  with  the  word  of  our  text-book, 
corroborating  and  explaining  the  Bible  texts  in 
their  spiritual  import  and  application  to  all  ages, 
past,   present   and    future,   constitute    a   sermon 


ITS  INHERENT  DIFFICULTIES  53 

undivorced  from  truth,  tincontaminated  and 
unfettered  by  human  hypotheses,  and  authorized 
by  Christ. "  Her  infallibility  is  of  a  most  extraor- 
dinary character.  She  speaks  the  final  word 
upon  the  whole  range  of  human  thought.  She 
has  discovered  the  Final  and  Absolute  Principle. 
There  can  be  nothing  beyond.  To  depart  from 
her  teachings  is,  to  use  her  own  words,  to  "adopt 
and  adhere  to  some  particular  system  of  human 
thought."  The  general  acceptance  of  such  an 
infallibility  would  stop  all  independent  thinking, 
and  put  an  end  to  all  human  progress. 

2.  A  second  difficulty  is  the  denial  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  senses  and  of  the  reality  of  matter. 
Mrs.  Eddy  declares,  "Nothing  we  can  say  or 
believe  regarding  matter  is  true  except  that 
matter  is  unreal."  She  defines  matter  as  "that 
which  mortal  mind  sees,  feels,  hears,  tastes,  and 
smells  only  in  belief."  "[Christian]  Science 
reveals  material  man  as  a  dream  at  all  times,  and 
never  as  the  real  Being."  "The  material  senses 
testify  falsely. "  "The  material  atom  is  an  out- 
lined falsity  of  consciousness."  "[Christian] 
Science  and  material  sense  conflict  at  all  points 
from  the  revolution  of  the  earth  to  the  fall  of  a 
sparrow."  Scores  of  similar  quotations  might 
be  given.  The  whole  material  universe,  from 
remotest  star  to  minutest  atom,  is  a  strange,  inex- 
plicable, complicated  delusion.  It  is  the  product 
of  the  "mortal  mind,"  and  the  "mortal  mind"  it- 
self is  defined  as  a  " solecism  in  language, "  " some- 
thing untrue  and  unreal. "     Sun,  moon,  and  stars, 


54  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

changing  seasons,  waving  forests,  broad  rivers, 
majestic  mountains,  verdant  landscapes,  blooming 
flowers,  singing  birds,  ripening  harvests,  are  all  a 
delusion.  The  psalmist  was  blind  and  misled 
when  he  wrote,  "The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God."  And  again,  when  he  said,  ''When  I 
consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the 
moon  and  the  stars  which  thou  hast  made, ' '  he 
was  like  a  man  talking  in  his  sleep.  This  atti- 
tude toward  matter  and  the  testimony  of  the 
senses  is  more  serious  than  at  first  it  may  appear. 
It  means  that  it  is  folly  to  study  astronomy, 
geology,  chemistry,  physiology,  biology  or  any  of 
the  sciences  which  have  contributed  so  marvel- 
ously  to  the  progress  of  this  age.  Such  studies 
only  tend  to  more  hopelessly  involve  man  in  the 
bondage  to  that  which  is  fundamentally  false. 
Christian  Science  is  really  a  call  to  close  all  our 
laboratories  and  all  schools  of  scientific  research. 
Already  in  a  number  of  instances,  Christian 
Scientists  have  requested  that  their  children  be 
excused  from  studying  physiology  in  the  public 
schools.  This  is  in  entire  harmony  with  their 
faith.  But  the  same  principle  that  calls  for  the 
rejection  of  physiology  will,  when  fully  and  con- 
sistently applied,  reject  all  scientific  study.  Mrs. 
Eddy  says:  "If  half  the  attention  given  to 
hygiene  were  given  to  the  study  of  Christian 
Science  and  its  elevation  of  thought,  this  alone 
would  usher  in  the  millennium." 

But  this  rejection  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses 
means  universal  skepticism.     The  one  indivisible 


ITS  INHERENT  DIFFICULTIES  55 

mind  communicates  with  the  material  world  and 
also  with  the  spiritual.  On  the  one  hand  it 
affirms  the  reality  of  objects  and  things,  on  the 
other  of  thoughts  and  ideas.  If  all  is  a  delusion 
on  one  side,  what  possible  ground  have  we  for 
believing  in  the  affirmations  of  the  same  mind  on 
the  other  side?  The  logical  conclusion,  from  the 
rejection  of  the  testimony  of  the  mind  respecting 
the  senses,  is  to  reject  all  its  testimony  and  to 
believe  that  nothing  is  real,  and  that  existence 
itself  is 

A    DREAM    WITHOUT    A    DREAMER. 

3.  Several  serious  difficulties  present  them- 
selves in  connection  with  the  healing  of  disease. 
It  is  urged  that  all  suffering  originates  in  the 
mind.  There  is  no  objective  disorder,  because 
there  is  no  object  to  be  disordered.  The  entire 
conception  of  material  existence  is  that  it  is  evil 
and  evil  only.  It  is  regarded  as  a  delusion,  but  it 
is  the  reverse  of  good.  Mrs.  Eddy  declares: 
"The  only  conscious  existence  in  the  flesh  is 
error  of  some  sort,  sin,  pain,  death."  Note  care- 
fully this  statement — "the  only  co?iscious  exist- 
ence in  the  flesh"  is  utterly  bad — "sin,  pain, 
death." 

Here  is  a  pessimism  equal  to  that  held  by 
Schopenhauer.  Everything  in  the  material 
world  is  the  direct  opposite  of  good.  Humanity 
is  one  great  disease.  It  is  a  contradiction  of 
terms  to  speak  of  physical  health,  for  the  body 
itself  is  wholly  and  irremediably  evil.     You  can- 


56  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

not  cure  the  body,  for  the  body  is  incurable;  it  is 
from  its  very  nature  "sin,  disease,  death."  We 
are  told  that  the  way  to  get  rid  of  a  pain  in  the 
head  is  to  insist  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
pain.  Why  not  be  consistent  and  insist  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  the  head?  The  real  trouble  is 
not  that  we  have  supposed  that  there  is  a  pain, 
but  that  we  have  been  deluded  into  believing 
that  there  is  a  head  to  have  a  pain.  Here  is 
a  fundamental  inconsistency  in  the  Christian 
Science  treatment  of  disease.  Disease  is  simply 
a  symptom.  Why  treat  symptoms?  V/hy  not 
think  truth  respecting  the  body,  and  cast  off  at 
once  this  wretched  pest-house  of  pain,  this 
disease-infected  delusion?  The  difficulty  is  not 
that  there  is  a  pain  here,  and  a  pain  there,  but 
that  there  is  a  material  body  at  all.  Here  is  the 
root  of  the  whole  trouble.  The  weakest  point 
logically  in  Christian  Science  is  right  here  where 
it  claims  to  be  strongest.  It  does  not  apply  its 
fundamental  principle  in  treating  disease.  Its 
cures  must  find  some  explanation  aside  from  the 
application  of  a  principle  which  is  never  really 
applied. 

A  somewhat  extended  quotation  will  prepare 
the  way  for  another  difficulty: 

"If  a  dose  of  poison  is  swallowed  through  mis- 
take and  the  patient  dies,  even  though  physician 
and  patient  are  expecting  favorable  results,  does 
belief,  you  ask,  cause  this  death?  Even  so,  and 
as  direct! V  as  if  the  poison  had  been  intentionally 
taken.      In   such  cases  a  few   persons  believe  the 


ITS   INHERENT   DIFFICULTIES  57 

potion  swallowed  by  the  patient  to  be  harmless, 
but  the  vast  majority  of  mankind,  though  they 
know  nothing  of  this  particular  case  and  this  par- 
ticular person,  believe  the  arsenic,  the  strychnine, 
or  whatever  the  drug  used,  to  be  poisonous,  for 
it  has  been  set  down  as  poison  by  mortal  mind. 
The  consequence  is  that  the  result  is  controlled  by 
the  majority  opinion  outside  and  not  by  the  infini- 
tesimal minority  of  opinion  in  the  sick  chamber." 
And  yet  elsewhere  in  direct   contradiction  to 
this  she  declares:  ''Homeopathic  remedies,  some- 
times not  containing  a  particle  of  medicine,  are 
known  to  relieve   symptoms  of    disease.      What 
produces  the  change?     It  is  the  faith  of  'mortal 
mind.'  "     But  here  evidently  it  is  the  minority 
inside  and  not  the  vast  majority  outside  that  does 
the  work.     If  the  minority  could  make  helpful 
medicine  out  of  unmedicated  pills,  why  could  not 
a  minority  make  poison  harmless?     There  must 
be    something  wrong  here    somewhere.      Then, 
too,  there  are  many  mind  cures,  hypnotic  cures, 
spiritualistic   cures,    and  the  like.      These    Mrs. 
Eddy   maintains   are    effected   by   the   belief    or 
power  of   "mortal  mind."     Here  also  it  would 
seem  that  the  minority  has  in  some  unaccountable 
way  caught  the  majority  napping. 

WHY    NOT    HEAL    ALL    DISEASES? 

Still  another  difficulty  is  met  with  in  connection 
with  the  work  of  healing.  Why  do  some  diseases 
yield  to  Christian  Science  treatment  much  more 
readily  than  others?     A  careful  statement  of  the 


58  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

principle  upon  which  these  cures  are  based  will 
show  the  inconsistency  here.  ''Immortal  Mind" 
is  universal  and  real,  as  "mortal  mind"  is  limited 
and  unreal.  To  cure  disease  "Immortal  Mind" 
must  assert  the  unreality  of  the  affirmations  of 
"mortal  mind."  "Mortal  mind"  says,  "I  am  sick." 
"Immortal  Mind"  says,  "There  is  no  such  thing 
as  sickness,  it  is  all  a  delusion,"  and  since 
"Immortal  Mind"  is  infinitely  superior  to 
"mortal  mind,"  the  supposed  sickness  vanishes. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  follows  that  healing  is  not 
in  any  way  due  to  faith  in  the  divine  mercy  and 
power,  nor  is  it  a  question  of  magnetism,  hypno- 
tism, or  the  power  of  mind  over  matter;  it  is 
simply  accepting  and  thinking  the  truth.  This 
being  true,  there  is  no  place  whatever  for  any 
distinction  as  to  diseases;  one  ought  to  yield  as 
readily  as  another.  When  Copernicus  discovered 
the  right  principle  of  the  universe  the  big  planets 
fell  into  line  just  as  readily  as  the  little  ones.  If 
Christian  Science  is  all  it  claims  to  be,  it  ought  to 
be  able  to  set  a  broken  bone  and  restore  lost 
teeth,  just  as  readily  as  to  cure  a  nervous  head- 
ache. Again,  if  Christian  Science  has  indeed  dis- 
covered the  great  underlying  principle  for  the 
banishment  of  disease,  its  work  of  healing  ought 
to  show  a  marked  superiority  over  every  other 
method  for  the  treatment  of  the  suffering.  But 
the  fact  is  that  all  of  its  works  are  readily  paral- 
leled by  other  schemes  for  healing  without 
imedicine,  and  seem  to  have  the  same  character- 
istics and  limitations  that  these  have. 


ITS   INHERENT   DIFFICULTIES  59 

4.  Another  serious  difficulty  is  the  origin  of 
evil.  The  simple  fundamental  principles  are  as 
follows:  "God  is  all,  God  is  good,  hence  all  is 
good."  There  is  absolutely  nothing  outside  of 
God  or  good.  And  yet  somewhere,  somehow,  a 
vast  and  awful  delusion  sprang  up  which  has 
filled  the  world  with  groans  and  sighs  and  sins. 
In  commenting  upon  Gen.  3:4,  5,  Mrs.  Eddy 
says:  "This  myth  represents  error  as  always 
asserting  its  superiority  over  truth,  giving  the  lie 
to  Divine  Science,  and  saying  through  the 
material  senses,  'I  can  open  your  eyes,  I  can  do 
what  God  has  not  done  for  you.*  "  One  writer 
has  very  pertinently  said,  "While  Mrs.  Eddy 
smuggles  in  the  fact  of  the  fall,  she  gives  no 
rational  account  of  it."  She  attempts  to  explain 
it  in  the  following:  "The  history  of  error  is  a 
dream-narrative.  The  dream  has  no  reality,  no 
intelligence,  no  mind;  therefore  the  dreamer  and 
the  dream  are  one,  for  neither  is  true  or  real." 
But  if  we  grant  this,  the  difficulty  is  not  met. 
The  dream  itself  is  a  fact,  a  horrible,  protracted 
nightmare.  "God  is  all,  and  all  is  good;" 
whence  then  this  awful  dream  of  evil?  Man  is 
not  responsible  for  it,  for  he  is  simply  an  idea  of 
the  Divine  Mind.  He  is  a  part  of  God,  of  the 
universal  good.  He  has  no  independent  person- 
ality or  power.  Call  evil  a  dream,  a  delusion,  a 
fancy,  anything  you  please,  still  it  remains  a  fear- 
ful fact  in  human  experience.  It  may  be  urged 
that  other  systems  of  thought  have  serious  trouble 
in  accounting  for  evil.     But  the  difference  is  this, 


6o  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

they  adopt  principles  that  recognize  the  possibility 
and  power  of  evil,  while  Christian  Science  by  its 
fundamental  principles  excludes  all  possibility  of 
evil  in  any  form  whatever.  There  is  no  place 
logically  in  this  system  for  even  a  dream  of  evil. 

THE    TREATMENT    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

5.  The  treatment  of  scripture  is  another  diffi- 
culty of  large  proportions.  Mrs.  Eddy  claims  to 
be  a  firm  believer  in  the  Bible.  She  declares 
"Divine  Science  derives  its  sanction  from  the 
Bible."  "The  Bible  has  been  my  only  text-book. 
I  have  no  other  guide  in  the  strait  and  narrow 
way  of  this  science. "  She  makes  frequent  quota- 
tions from  the  scriptures,  not  always  accurate, 
however,  as  the  following  example  will  show: 
"Jesus  said  of  Lazarus,  'He  is  not  dead,  but  sleep- 
eth. '  He  restored  Lazarus  by  the  understanding 
that  he  never  died,  not  by  an  admission  that  his 
body  had  died  and  then  lived  again."  Now  the 
fact  is,  Jesus  never  used  the  above  language  of 
Lazarus.  He  said  first,  "Our  friend  Lazarus 
sleepeth;"  but  when  the  disciples  misunderstood 
him  he  said  plainly  unto  them,  "Lazarus  is  dead." 

Her  interpretations  of  scripture  have  no  regard 
whatever  for  the  ordinary  meaning  of  words  or 
for  the  generally  accepted  laws  of  language.  The 
comment  on  Gen.  1:20  is  a  fair  sample  of  her 
method.  "To  mortal  mind  the  universe  is  liquid, 
solid  and  aeriform.  Spiritually  interpreted,  rocks 
and  mountains  stand  for  the  solid  and  grand 
ideas    of    truth.      Animals    and     mortals   meta- 


ITS   INHERENT   DIFFICULTIES  6l 

phorically  present  the  gradations  of  thought,  ris- 
ing in  the  scale  of  intelligence  taking  form  in 
masculine  and  feminine  ideas.  The  fowls  which 
fly  above  the  earth,  in  open  firmament  of  heaven, 
correspond  to  aspirations  soaring  beyond  and 
above  corporeality,  to  the  understanding  of  their 
incorporeal  and  divine  Principle. "  Such  handling 
of  scripture  undermines  all  sane  use  of  language, 
and  makes  the  Bible  capable  of  teaching  any 
vagary  that  may  enter  the  mind  of  man.  But 
worse  than  this,  she  really  denies  all  the  great 
doctrines  of  the  Bible.  Resurrection  means 
**Spiritualization  of  thought."  "Holy  Ghost 
means  Divine  Science."  "Baptism  is  purifica- 
tion by  Spirit,  submergence  in  truth."  '*Angels 
are  God's  thoughts  passing  to  man."  "Truth 
bestows  no  pardon  upon  error."  "We  cannot 
escape  the  penalty  due  for  sin."  "The  theory  of 
three  persons  in  one  God  suggests  heathen  gods 
rather  than  the  one  ever-present  i  am."  "Life, 
Truth,  and  Love  constitute  the  triune  God  or 
triply  divine  Principle."  "Every  mortal  must 
learn  that  there  is  no  power  in  evil."  And  thus 
she  goes  on  until  the  whole  gospel  structure  is 
utterly  undermined. 

There  is  space  simply  to  mention  other  grave 
difficulties.  Mrs.  Eddy  constantly  misrepresents 
current  philosophic  and  scientific  thought  respect- 
ing the  nature  of  matter.  No  one  believes  that 
matter  is  "a  creator"  or  is  in  itself  "sentient." 
A  system  that  makes  all  sin  an  illusion  seems  to 
undermine  all  moral  distinctions.     There  has  not 


62   SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

yet  been  time  to  see  what  the  fruitage  in  this 
respect  will  be. 

The  personality  of  God  and  also  of  man  as  nni- 
iVersally  understood  by  Christendom  is  denied. 
jGod  is  Principle  and  not  person,  and  man  is  an 
idea  of  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  was  simply  "the 
highest  human  corporeal  concept  of  the  divine 
idea."  His  divinity  was  essentially  the  same  as 
jthat  of  every  man.  Christian  Science  dethrones 
the  divine  Christ.  There  is  no  place  left  for  the 
ixercise  of  the  mercy  of  a  loving  personal  Father. 
An  absolute  all-embracing  Principle  is  supreme. 
Of  necessity,  this  system  becomes  practically 
prayerless.  Mrs.  Eddy  declares:  "God  is  not 
influenced  by  man."  She  argues  against 
audible  prayer:  "We  must  close  the  lips  and 
silence  the  material  senses."  In  fact,  there  is  no 
place  for  what  is  ordinarily  understood  by  silent 
prayer.  "The  habitual  struggle  to  be  always 
good  is  unceasing  prayer."  And  she  adds:  "He 
who  is  immutably  right  will  do  right  without 
being  reminded  of  his  promises."  All  this  is 
directly  contrary  to  the  frequent  Biblical 
examples  of  and  exhortations  to  prayer. 

Christian  Science  is  a  strange  mixture  of 
theosophy,  idealism,  pantheism  and  Sweden- 
borgianism,  with  a  thin  veneering  of  professed 
science  and  Christianity,  and  must  certainly  be 
greatly  modified  or  utterly  break  down  under  the 
weight  of  its  inherent  and  insuperable  difficulties. 


V 

EXPLANATIONS   OF   THE   GROWTH   OF 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

BY    LATHAN    A.   CRANDALL,   D.D. 

In  every  discussion  of  Christian  Science  this 
question  is  sure  to  be  asked:  "How  do  you 
account  for  its  growth?'*  It  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  the  statistics  presented  by  Mr.  Slater  in  the 
first  article  of  this  series,  in  order  to  show  ^that 
this  question  is  a  most  natural  one.  Here  is  a 
religious  sect  which  hardly  had  an  existence 
twenty  years  ago,  now  numbering  its  followers 
by  hundreds  of  thousands.  The  great  majority 
of  these  have  come  out  from  evangelical  churches, 
and,  however  indifferent  they  may  have  been  in 
their  former  church  relations,  they  seem  now  to  be 
possessed  by  a  consuming  zeal.  Costly  houses  of 
worship  are  erected,  and  paid  for  with  astonish- 
ing ease.  Services,  which  to  an  outsider  seem 
absolutely  wanting  in  attractiveness,  are  attended 
by  great  numbers  of  people,  and  that  not  once  or 
twice  only,  but  regularly,  month  after  month,  and 
year  after  year.  The  strength  of  Christian 
Science  is  greater  than  can  be  measured  by  count- 
ing the  number  of  communicants.  In  many 
evangelical  churches  may  be  found  those  who, 
without  changing  their  church  relationship,  have 
fully  accepted  the  teachings  of  Mrs.  Eddy.     Still 

63 


64  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

others  are  "tossed  to  and  fro,"  having  gone  a 
considerable  distance  toward  accepting  this  new 
faith,  but  not  being,  as  yet,  fully  persuaded. 

The  desire  for  some  explanation  of  this  remark- 
able growth  is  increased  as  we  note  the  enormous 
inherent  difficulties  of  Christian  Science.  The 
tax  upon  credulity  necessary  to  believe  that 
Joseph  Smith  told  the  truth  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  he  received  the  Books  of  Mormon,  is  small 
compared  with  that  required  to  accept  the  dogmas 
of  Mrs.  Eddy.  To  believe  that  neither  the  beef- 
steak which  you  buy,  nor  the  range  upon  which  it 
is  broiled,  nor  the  platter  upon  which  it  rests,  nor 
the  mouth  into  which  it  is  put  have  any  reality, 
causes  a  mighty  strain  upon  faith.  To  many,  the 
fact  that  Mrs.  Eddy  is  enthroned  as  a  female 
pope,  whose  slightest  wish  is  law,  and  whose  dicta 
are  never  questioned  and  from  which  no  appeal 
is  possible,  is  in  itself  sufficient  reason  for  reject- 
ing the  whole  system.  Yet,  despite  the  dictator- 
ship of  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  with  full  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  acceptance  of  Christian  Science  theories 
involves  the  denial  of  the  constant  evidence  of 
their  senses  as  well  as  what  seems  to  be  the  plain 
teaching  of  the  Bible,  thousands  of  honest  and 
fairly  intelligent  people  are  yearly  added  to  the 
already  large  number  of  those  who  look  to  Mrs. 
Eddy  as  an  infallible  guide. 

HALF-TRUTHS    HELP    TO    EXPLAIN    GROWTH. 

It  is  much  easier  to  ask  for  an  explanation  of 
this  strange  stampede  than  it  is  to  give  one  that 


ITS  GROWTH  65 

shall  be  satisfactory.  One  who  can  trace  and  lay 
bare  for  inspection  all  the  subtle  and  eccentric 
workings  of  the  human  mind,  who  cannot  only 
resolve  a  belief  into  its  causative  influences,  but 
follow  the  gossamer  thread  which  ties  together 
effect  and  cause,  must  be  endowed  with  almost 
supernatural  ability.  Some  are  disposed  to  say 
that  we  have  entered  a  cycle  of  intellectual  dis- 
turbance, such  as  has  been  illustrated  in  the  rise 
and  spread  of  Fourierism,  Spiritualism,  Miller- 
ism,  or  Mormonism,  and  to  give  over  any  further 
attempt  at  explanation.  This  is  an  easy  but  not 
altogether  satisfactory  way  of  disposing  of  the 
question.  Are  there  not  certain  facts  related  to 
this  movement  which  throw  light  upon  its 
development?  To  search  for  these  facts  is  the 
purpose  of  this  paper. 

At  the  very  outset  of  our  inquiry,  let  us  frankly 
acknowledge  that  Christian  Science  is  not  a  sys- 
tem of  unmixed  error.  Nothing  is  gained  by 
refusal  to  credit  our  opponents  with  that  which  is 
their  due.  As  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  we  must 
give  assent  to  some  of  the  things  which  Christian 
Science  teaches.  Patience,  unselfishness,  purity  o0, 
heart,  brotherliness,  love  and  hopefulness  do  not 
cease  to  be  virtues  because  Mrs.  Eddy  empha- 
sizes them.  When  she  urges  upon  her  followers 
the  very  choices  and  aims  and  activities  which  have 
formed  the  themes  for  Christian  sermons  and 
dissertations  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  we  can 
hardly  inveigh  against  this  part  of  her  teaching. 
However  false  we  may  consider  the  fundamental 


66  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

proposition,  '*God  is  all,"  in  the  sense  in  which 
Mrs.  Eddy  uses  it,  still  we  must  confess  that  it 
barely  escapes  being  a  fair  expression  of  that 
growing  belief  in  the  immanence  of  God  which  is 
so  marked  a  feature  of  the  Christian  thinking  of 
to-day.  To  another  fundamental,  '  *  God  is  good, ' ' 
we  can  only  object  that  it  is  a  weak  dilution  of 
the  nobler  declaration  that  "God  is  Love."  It  is 
often  said  concerning  Christian  Science  that 
**what  is  true  is  not  new,  and  what  is  new  is  not 
true."  Granted;  but  that  does  not  dispose  of  the 
truth  which  it  contains  or  rob  it  of  power  over 
human  hearts.  To  say  that  this  is  the  work  of 
the  devil,  who  is  sharp  enough  to  know  that 
unmixed  error  would  not  be  one-half  as  useful  to 
him  as  a  compound  in  which  truth  is  an  ingredi- 
ent, is  to  substitute  assertion  for  argument,  and 
utterly  fails  to  satisfy  candid  minds.  Explain  it 
as  we  will,  truth  is  found  in  this  new  faith  and 
has  its  power  over  the  souls  of  men. 

It  seems  quite  probable  that  at  the  present  time 
some  become  Christian  Scientists  because  it  is  the 
fashion.  It  is  an  age  of  fads,  and  this  fad  is  just 
now  the  popular  one.  It  is  quite  the  proper  thing 
in  some  cities  to  be  an  avowed  believer  in  the 
new  cult.  In  Chicago,  for  example,  the  congre- 
gation which  meets  in  the  building  recently 
erected  for  the  First  Christian  Science  Church 
is  not  only  large  but  well-dressed.  It  has  in  it 
many  men  and  women  of  wealth  and  social  stand- 
ing. That  this  has  its  influence  upon  some  is 
evident  from    the  remark    made   by    a  Chicago 


ITS  GROWTH  67 

Scientist  while  visiting  in  a  small  Illinois  village. 
•*I  should  not  care,"  said  she,  "to  be  a  Christian 
Scientist  in  a  small  town!"  However,  this  does 
not  explain  the  early  growth  of  Christian  Science, 
and  this  motive  is  probably  not  consciously  pres- 
ent in  any  large  number  of  cases  to-day. 

THE    FASCINATION    OF    DOGMATIC    STATEMENT. 

The  satisfaction  which  multitudes  seem  to  feel 
in  submitting  to  the  authority  of  Mrs.  Eddy, 
makes  it  probable  that  the  same  cause  which 
takes  some  people  into  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  accounts  in  a  measure  for  the  growth  of 
Christian  Science ;  viz. ,  a  desire  to  have  trouble- 
some questions  settled  for  them.  The  fact  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  demands  unquestioning  acceptance  of 
her  interpretations  of  scripture  and  unhesitating 
obedience  to  her  wishes,  while  repelling  some, 
undoubtedly  attracts  others.  For  not  a  few, 
independent  investigation  has  no  charm.  Inveigh 
against  dogmatism  as  we  will,  it  has  ever  been 
and  is  now  one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  the 
religious  world.  The  average  man  is  impressed 
with  any  statement  made  frequently  and  with 
vigor.  No  inconsiderable  number  of  people  in 
any  given  community  will  yield  themselves  will- 
ingly to  the  guidance  of  one  who  claims  to  know 
all  about  everything.  Only  a  small  number  of 
people  care  to  work  out  their  own  beliefs  by 
difficult  intellectual  and  spiritual  processes;  it 
is  vastly  easier  to  get  them  ready  made  and 
at  second  hand.     This  fact  has  had  not  a  little 


68  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

to  do  with  the  rapid  spread  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  dog- 
mas. 

The  fact    should  not  be  overlooked  that   few 
( intelligent  and  careful  students  of  the  Bible  have 
'become   Christian   Scientists.      The   writer  does 
not  personally  know  of  one  such  instance,  neither 
has  he  ever  heard  of  one.     If  it  be  urged  that 
clergymen  are  among  the  number  of  those  who 
accept  Mrs.   Eddy's  teaching,  it  may  be  said  in 
reply  that  not  all  ministers  are  Bible  students. 
It  would  be  well-nigh  impossible  for  one  familiar 
with  the  principles  of  interpretation  and  who  has 
made  a  patient  and  prayerful  study  of  the  Bible, 
to   accept  the  fantastic  exegesis  of  Mrs.    Eddy. 
One  often  hears  the  declaration  from  disciples  of 
Mrs.    Eddy,  *' The  Bible  is  a  new  book  to  me." 
No  doubt  this  declaration  is  true.     The  Bible  of 
the  fathers  disappears  under  the  skillful  manipula- 
tion of  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  that  which  takes  its  place 
is  most  fearfully  and  wonderfully  new.     But  it  is 
new  to  many  of  those  who  join  the  ranks  of  the 
Christian  Scientists  because,  although  Christians, 
they  have  not  been  Bible  students.     Despite  the 
sermons  which  they  have  heard  and  the  Sunday- 
schools  which  they  have  attended,  it  remains  a 
sad  fact  that  multitudes  of  church  members  know 
comparatively  little   about   their   Bibles.      They 
have  given  little  or  no  time  to  independent  and 
thorough  study  of  the  word  of  God.     We  are  not 
trying  to   locate  the  blame,  but  to  state  a  fact. 
Such  people    fall   easy  victims  to   the    biblical 
prestidigitator.     Mrs.   Eddy  juggles  with  words. 


ITS  GROWTH  69 

makes  an  innocent  term  like  "Euphrates" 
mean  ''Divine  Science  encompassing  the  universe 
and  man,"  dissects  Adam  into  "a  dam,  an  obstruc- 
tion," and  the  credulous  spectator  believes  that 
this  sleight-of-hand  performance  is  a  divine 
revelation.  Christian  Science  would  never  have 
become  what  it  is  if  the  members  of  our  churches 
had  been  intelligent  and  thorough  students  of  the 
Bible. 

THE    CURES    CONVERT. 

But  Christian  Science  converts  because  it  cures. 
All  the  other  factors  in  its  growth  put  together 
are  insignificant  when  compared  with  this.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  90  per  cent,  of  all  Christian 
Scientists  are  such  because  they  have  had  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  cures  wrought  by  Science 
healers.  A  study  of  "Letters  from  Those 
Healed,"  found  in  the  "Miscellaneous  Writings" 
of  Mrs.  Eddy,  reveals  the  fact  that  it  was  not  the 
self-evident  truth  of  the  theories  contained  in 
"Science  and  Health"  which  brought  about  the 
conversion  of  these  people,  but  relief  from 
physical  maladies.  One  witness  states  that  she 
bought  a  copy  of  "Science  and  Health,"  and  at 
first  it  was  like  Greek  to  her ;  she  could  under- 
stand only  a  little  of  it.  By  persistent  reading 
she  was  cured  of  her  malady.  A  gentleman  testi- 
fies that  he  had  been  held  in  bondage  many  years 
by  "beliefs  of  consumption,  dyspepsia,  neuralgia, 
piles,  tobacco  and  bad  language."  He  procured 
a  copy  of  "Science  and  Health,"  and,  he  says, 
"after   some  days'  reading  I  was  affected  with 


70  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

drowsiness  followed  by  vomiting.  This  lasted 
several  hours;  when  I  fell  into  a  sleep  and  awoke 
healed."  Any  one  who  has  attempted  to  read 
the  text-book  of  Christian  Science  will  be  fully 
prepared  to  credit  the  testimony  of  this  witness 
as  to  the  drowsiness  and  nausea.  It  is  doubtful 
if  Mrs.  Eddy  would  have  a  dozen  followers  in  the 
entire  world  were  her  theories  not  buttressed  by 
cures  wrought. 

The  fact  that  Christian  Science  sometimes  fails 
in  attempts  to  heal,  and  the  other  fact  that  cures 
are  sometimes  claimed  where  none  have  been 
wrought,  do  not  prove  that  all  the  cases  of 
alleged  healing  are  spurious.  People  whose  hon- 
esty is  unquestioned,  and  whose  intelligence 
makes  them  competent  witnesses,  declare  that 
they  have  been  healed  of  serious  maladies  under 
Christian  Science  treatment.  As  an  example  of 
the  experiences  through  which  some  have  passed, 
the  writer  submits  the  testimony  of  a  personal 
friend,  a  sincere  and  intelligent  woman.  She 
says:  "I  had  been  ill  for  several  weeks,  and  under 
the  care  of  a  physician.  As  I  was  growing  worse 
all  of  the  time,  some  of  my  friends  urged  me  to 
call  in  a  Christian  Science  healer.  I  protested 
vigorously,  as  I  had  no  faith  in  the  system.  The 
mere  thought  of  employing  such  an  agency  was 
so  distasteful  that  I  spent  nearly  half  a  day  in 
tears.  When  I  finally  yielded  to  the  solicitations 
of  my  friends  I  told  the  healer  who  visited  me 
that  I  had  no  confidence  in  her  ability  to  help  me; 
yet  after  one   treatment   I   arose  from   my  bed, 


ITS  GROWTH  71 

and  have  not  been  ill  since."  This  lady  is  now 
an  ardent  Christian  Scientist,  and  her  case  is 
duplicated  over  and  over  again. 

Christian  Scientists  themselves  point  to  the 
cures  wrought  as  establishing  the  validity  of  their 
claims.  It  is  not  often  that  one  of  them  will  con- 
sent to  discuss  the  philosophical  propositions  of 
Christian  Science,  considered  in  and  of  them- 
selves. They  rest  their  case  not  upon  argument, 
but  upon  so-called  "demonstrations."  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them"  is  the  one  answer  to 
all  objections  urged  against  the  theories  which 
they  accept.  Their  reasoning  seems  to  be  that  if 
Christian  Science  cures  disease  then  its  theories 
must  be  true ;  Christian  Science  does  cure  disease ; 
therefore  its  theories  are  true.  If  we  admit 
the  major  premise,  we  must  accept  their  con- 
clusion ;  for  that  diseases  have  yielded  to  Chris- 
itan  Science  treatment  in  multitudes  of  instances, 
is  as  well  established  as  that  quinine  is  service- 
able as  a  febrifuge. 

THE    REAL    BASIS    OF    THE    CURES. 

Having  come  upon  the  explanation — in  large 
part  at  least — it  remains  to  explain  the  explana- 
tion. How  are  these  cures  wrought?  Mrs.  Eddy 
says  that  the  only  true  thing  which  can  be  said 
about  matter  is  that  it  is  unreal.  It  necessarily 
follows  that  disease  is  also  unreal.  If  the  body  is 
a  "misstatement  of  mind,"  the  disease  can  be  no 
more  than  a  state  of  mind.  Eradicate  the  belief 
from   the  mind,  and  you  have  effected  a  cure. 


72  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

This  is  mind-cure  pure  and  simple,  however  much 
Mrs.  Eddy  and  her  followers  may  protest  against 
this  explanation  of  their  work.  Every  intelligent 
physician  will  admit  that  the  mind  powerfully 
affects  the  body,  both  in  inducing  disease  and 
remedially.  While  there  are  some  things  that  the 
mind  cannot  do,  such  as  giving  sight  to  one  born 
blind,  or  setting  a  dislocation,  or  replacing  a  limb 
that  has  been  amputated,  it  seems  quite  certain 
that  its  range  of  influence  is  much  wider  than  has 
generally  been  recognized.  The  mind  affects  not 
only  the  nerves,  but  the  circulatory  system  and 
the  secretions,  and  has  been  known  to  effect 
changes  in  tissue  and  in  structure.  Many  a  man 
needs  only  to  be  told  that  he  looks  ill  to  feel  so ; 
while  a  firm  persuasion  that  we  are  not  sick,  or 
that  the  remedies  employed  will  certainly  prove 
effective,  is  of  larger  therapeutic  value  than  many 
bottles  of  patent  medicines. 

The  discussion  of  the  different  phases  of  mind- 
cure,  and  of  the  systems  which  employ  this 
agency,  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  article.  The 
study  of  mesmerism,  magnetism,  clairvoyance, 
telepathy,  mental  and  metaphysical  healing,  sug- 
gestion and  auto-suggestion,  hypnosis  and 
autohypnosis  belongs  to  the  department  of 
physiological  psychology.  It  is  sufficient  for  our 
present  purpose  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
so  far  as  any  of  these  agencies  are  employed  in 
healing  disease,  their  potency  depends  upon 
securing  certain  mental  conditions.  When  these 
mind-conditions    have     been     induced,    physical 


ITS  GROWTH  73 

results  follow  in  many — but  not  all — cases. 
Christian  Science  as  a  therapeutic  agent  must 
take  its  place  with  other  systems  which  heal 
disease  without  the  use  of  drugs. 

The  assumption  that  cures  establish  theories 
falls  to  the  ground  when  we  consider  the  number 
of  conflicting  theories  which  would  be  proved 
true  were  this  contention  well  founded.  In  the 
city  of  Chicago  is  a  physician  who  claims  to  heal 
by  a  process  of  "vitalization."  His  avowed 
theory  is  that  magnetic  currents  having  healing 
properties  flow  from  his  body  to  the  bodies  of  his 
patients.  He  furnishes  numerous  testimonials 
from  reputable  people  who  swear  that  they  have 
been  healed  by  him.  That  he  does  perform  some 
cures  cannot  be  doubted.  Do  these  cures  prove 
that  his  theory  of  **vitalization"  and  magnetic 
currents  is  true?  Dr.  Dowie,  of  faith-cure  fame, 
holds  that  there  is  a  real  body  and  real  disease, 
and  that  God  heals  in  answer  to  prayer.  Mrs. 
Eddy  declares  that  neither  body  nor  disease  have 
any  real  existence.  Both  perform  cures.  Are 
both  sets  of  theories  true?  That  can  hardly  be, 
since  they  are  mutually  contradictory.  Christian 
Science  is  only  one  of  many  systems  which  under- 
take to  heal  disease  without  the  use  of  drugs.  Its 
cures  are  no  more  real  or  more  wonderful  than 
those  wrought  at  Lourdes  or  by  Schlatter,  or  by 
Mental  Science.  They  all  have  a  common 
method,  differing  only  in  'details.  Thousands  of 
people  believe  that  the  Virgin  Mary  appeared  to 
the   maidens    in  the  grotto   at   Lourdes.      They 


74  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

believe  this  because  they  have  found  health 
through  prayer  offered  in  this  grotto.  Other 
thousands  believe  all  the  absurd  and  self-contra- 
dictory declarations  made  by  Mrs.  Eddy,  because 
they  have  been  healed  by  Christian  Science  treat- 
ment. So  great  is  man's  longing  for  physical 
health,  so  keen  the  gratitude  of  those  who  have 
been  physically  benefited,  that  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
time  ever  comes  when  men  will  refuse  to  accept 
theories,  however  fantastic,  if  presented  to  them 
interwoven  with  healing  of  bodily  maladies. 


VI 

THE  PRECURSORS  OF  CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE 

BY    FRANKLIN    JOHNSON,   D.D. 

The  writers  who  have  preceded  me  in  this  series 
of  articles  have  made  it  clear  that  Christian  Sci- 
ence is  a  species  of  pantheism.  All  the  historic 
systems  of  pantheistic  philosophy,  therefore,  are 
its  precursors.  But  some  of  these  systems  are 
more  nearly  related  to  it  than  others. 

TWO    SORTS   OF    PANTHEISM. 

It  is  not  easy  for  any  pantheist  to  regard  both 
God  and  the  universe  as  simple,  sincere  and  hon- 
est.    It  is  the  tendency  of  pantheism  in  every 
form  to  find  illusions  where  the  more  sober  phi- 
losophies find  substantial  reality.    The  fact  that 
some  pantheists  have  resisted  the  tendency  does 
not  disprove  the  existence  of  it,  since  the  great 
majority  of  their  fellows  have  been  swept  away 
by  it.     Either  matter  and  motion  are  the  chieTl 
realities,   and   all  lofty  conceptions  of  God   are  1 
illusions,  even  though  innate  in  the  human  mind ;  ' 
or  God  is  the  only  reality,  and  material  things  are 
illusions  in  a  greater  or  less  degree.     These  are 
the  two  extremes  between  which  the  pendulum  of  . 
pantheism   ever  swings.      The  chief  systems  ol-^ 

75 


76   SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

pantheistic  thought  which  have  disturbed  the 
church  have  tended  to  the  second  of  these 
extremes,  and  Christian  Science  is  now  to  be 
added  to  their  number. 

Indeed,  Mrs.  Eddy  expressly  repudiates 
pantheism  in  the  first  of  these  two  forms,  as  in 
the  following  sentences:  *'It  is  pantheistic  to  sup- 
pose that  brains  are  intelligent,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  Mind  is  material.  Pantheism  is 
neither  Christian  nor  scientific.  The  belief  that 
Mind  is  a  product  of  matter  is  absurd."  "The 
false  doctrine  of  pantheism  that  God,  or  Life,  is 
in  or  of  matter."  This  materialistic  type  of 
pantheism  is  the  only  one  of  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
seems  to  have  heard.  It  is  evident  from  these 
quotations  that  when  she  condemns  pantheism 
she  thinks  only  of  the  materialistic  extreme,  and 
not  the  idealistic,  of  which  her  system  of  thought,  if 
it  may  be  called  a  system,  is  a  confused  example. 

The  pantheistic  systems  with  which  I  have 
classed  Christian  Science  had  their  parentage 
in  India,  the  native  home  of  all  hilosophy. 
Brahmanism,  the  oldest  philosophy  in  the  world 
— especially  as  interpreted  by  the  Vedantic  school 
of  philosophical  and  religious  teachers — is  the 
earliest  precursor  of  Christian  Science.  This 
statement  I  shall  now  justify  by  pointing  out 
several  prominent  traits  of  family  resemblance. 

MATTER    AN    ILLUSION. 

The  first  is  the  denial  that  matter  really  exists, 
which,  as  the  reader  already  knows,  is  one  of  the 


ITS  PRECURSORS  77 

fundamental  doctrines  of  Christian  Science.  **In 
the  Vedantic  school,"  says  Davies,  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  translation  of  the  "Bhagavad 
Gita,"  "all  bodily  forms  or  material  existences 
are  mere  illusion,  a  temporary  appearance,  like 
an  image  of  the  moon  in  water,  with  which  it  has 
pleased  the  One  Sole  Being  to  veil  for  a  time  his 
purely  spiritual  nature."  "The  difficult,  or 
rather  impossible  problem  of  the  origin  of  matter 
and  of  existing  forms  is  set  aside  by  the  mere 
negation  of  matter." 

SIN    AN    ILLUSION. 

A  second  trait  of  family  resemblance  is  found 
in  the  teaching  of  the  two  systems  concerning 
deliverance  from  imperfection.  It  can  hardly  be 
said  that  sin,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  is  recog- 
nized in  Brahmanism ;  but  imperfection  and 
wretchedness  are  recognized,  and  a  remedy  for 
them  is  provided.  As  they  spring  wholly  from 
ignorance,  the  remedy  is  knowledge.  When  a 
man  knows  perfectly  that  all  material  things  are 
illusions,  and  that  he  himself  is  Brahma,  his  long 
journey  of  successive  transmigrations  comes  to  an 
end,  and  he  enters  upon  eternal  quiescence. 
Christian  Science  seems  to  speak  more  distinctly 
of  sin,  because  our  age  is  one  in  which  sin  is 
recognized  by  millions  of  earnest  persons,  and  is 
mourned  and  hated  far  more  bitterly  than  are 
mere  imperfection  and  wretchedness.  But  Chris- 
tian Science  speaks  of  sin  only  to  pronounce  it  an 
illusion.     As  Brahmanism  knows  no  real  sin,  so 


78  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

Christian  Science  knows  no  real  sin;  and  as 
Brahmanism  provides  no  better  remedy  than 
knowledge  for  human  imperfection  and  wretched- 
ness, so  Christian  Science  provides  no  better' 
remedy  than  knowledge  for  the  illusion  of  sin. 
1  We  need  but  to  perceive  that  sin  does  not  exist  in 
(order  to  conquer  it.  Like  disease,  it  disappears 
when  we  deny  it  a  place  among  the  realities  of 
existence. 

PAIN    AND    DEATH    ILLUSIONS. 

A  third  trait  of. faniilyLresemblance  is  found  in 
the  denial  of  the  reality  of  pain  and_death_com- 
mon  to  Brahmanism  and  Christian  Science, 
The  author  of  the  '*Bhagavad  Gita,"  though  he 
does  not  hold  the  doctrine  of  illusion  in  its 
extremest  form,  yet  denies  that  the  body  is 
sufficiently  real  to  enable  any  one  to  kill  an 
enemy  or  to  be  killed  by  an  enemy.  He  repre- 
sents Krishna  as  exhorting  a  warrior  to  enter  into 
battle  because  he  can  neither  give  nor  receive 
any  injury.  The  soul  is  the  man.  "He  who 
deems  this  to  be  a  slayer  and  he  who  thinks  that 
it  can  be  slain,  are  both  undiscerning:  it  slays 
not,  and  it  is  not  slain."  The  **Bhagavad  Gita" 
is  a  poem,  indeed,  and  some  one  may  object  that 
it  is  wrong  to  press  its  language  into  the  mold  of 
a  literal  interpretation.  On  the  contrary,  while 
it  is  a  poem,  it  professes  to  teach  a  philosophy. 
The  passage  which  I  have  quoted  is  no  mere 
poetic  interpretation  of  our  mortality,  like  the  line 
in  which  Longfellow  assures  us  that 


ITS   PRECURSORS  79 

"There  is  no  death,  what  seems  such  is  transition." 

It  asserts  what  the  author  regards  as  a  sober 
truth,  and  is  employed  as  the  basis  of  an  argu- 
ment. The  body  is  a  mere  garment,  with  no 
organic  relation  to  the  soul ;  it  is  put  on  at  what 
we  call  birth,  and  put  off  at  what  we  call  death, 
but  the  man  is  not  born,  nor  does  he  die. 
"Wherefore,  fight,  O  son  of  Bharata." 

This  sounds  quite  like  the  declaration  of  Mrs. 
Eddy  that  "there  is  no  birth  or  death;  there  is  no 
suffering;  it  is  only  the  counterfeit  of  man— the 
mortal  mind— that  undergoes  these  illusions." 

THE    DEIFICATION    OF    MAN. 

A  fourth  trait  of  family  resemblance  is  the 
identification  of  the  human  soul  with  God,  and 
hence  the  deification  of  man.  We  meet  this  first 
in  Brahmanism,  and  last  in  Christian  Science. 
The  devotee  of  the  Vedantic  system  of  religion 
"must  notice  the  illusory  character  of  all  that 
seems  to  exist,  or  all  that  is  besides  the  absolute 
spirit,  and  thereby  be  in  a  position  to  say,  I  am 
Brahma,  the  unchanging,  pure,  intelligent,  free, 
undecaying,  supreme  joy,  eternal,  secondless." 
The  reader  has  already  learned  with  what  bold- 
ness Christian  Science  essays  this  leap  from  the 
creature  to  the  Creator  of  all. 

THE    APPLICATION    OF    THESE    VIEWS. 

I  do  not  find  all  the  details  of  Christian  Science 
in  Brahmanism,  the  earliest  school  of  panthe- 
istic thought  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge ; 


8o  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

but,  as  we  have  seen,  its  fundamental  assump- 
i  tions  are  there.  The  person  who  accepts  these 
^  may  apply  them  in  various  ways.  The  devotees 
of  Christian  Science  go  further  than  the  most  dar- 
ing of  their  precursors  when  they  apply  them  to 
the  healing  of  disease.  The  Hindu  pantheist, 
denying  the  reality  of  the  body,  denied,  as  a 
logical  necessity,  the  reality  of  pain  and  death, 
but  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  the  steadfast 
denial  was  a  means  of  recovery  from  the  unreal 
pain  and  of  escape  from  the  unreal  death.  This 
last  step  in  the  process  was  reserved  for  Mrs. 
Eddy.  But  the  Hindu  pantheists  made  an 
approach  to  it.  There  is  a  large  class  of  Brah- 
mans  who  are  called  Yogis,  because  they  practice 
Yoga,  a  combination  of  ascetic  tortures  and  medi- 
tation. One  of  their  sacred  exercises  is  said  by 
them  to  be  ''highly  beneficial  in  overcoming  all 
diseases."  But  it  is  a  mere  posture,  and  the  man 
who  assumes  it  does  not  attempt  to  overcome 
disease  by  arguing  in  his  mind  that  there  is  no 
^  disease.  Many  of  the  Yogis  have  gone  very  far 
I  in  showing  the  supremacy  of  the  mind  over  the 
I  body.  Monier  Williams,  in  his  "Indian  Wisdom," 
describes  their  achievements  as  follows:  "We 
read  of  some  who  acquire  the  power  of  remaining 
under  water  for  a  space  of  time  quite  incredible ; 
of  others  who  bury  themselves  up  to  the  neck  in 
the  ground  or  even  below  it,  leaving  only  a  little 
hole  through  which  to  breathe;  of  others  who 
keep  their  fists  clenched  for  years  till  the  nails 
grow  through  the  back  of  their  hands ;  of  others 


ITS  PRECURSORS  8i 

who  hold  one  or  both  arms  aloft  till  they  become 
immovably  fixed  in  that  position  and  withered  to 
the  bone ;  of  others  who  roll  their  bodies  for  thou- 
sands of  miles  to  some  place  of  pilgrimage;  of 
others  who  sleep  on  beds  of  iron  spikes ;  of  others 
who  chain  themselves  for  life  to  trees;  and  of 
others,  again,  who  pass  their  lives,  heavily 
chained,  in  iron  cages."  These  and  a  thousand 
other  forms  of  self-torture  are  practiced  with  but 
little  appearance  of  pain.  The  denial  of  the 
reality  of  the  body  must  have  encouraged  these 
ascetic  rigors.  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that 
the  Yogis  did  not  take  one  further  step,  and  try  to 
find  in  their  theories  and  usages  a  means  of  dissi- 
pating disease;  though,  being  acute  reasoners,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  they  failed  to  stumble  into  the 
absurdity  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  to  teach  that  cures 
are  wrought  by  the  steadfast  denial  that  there  is 
anything  to  cure. 

THE    PEDIGREE    OF    CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE. 

But,  after  all,  is  there  anything  more  than  a 
series  of  accidental  analogies  to  connect  Hindu 
pantheism  with  Christian  Science?  Is  the  one 
the  precursor  of  the  other  historically  and 
genetically?  It  is  probable  that  Mrs.  Eddy  never 
heard  of  Hindu  pantheism ;  yet  it  is  also  probable 
that  it  has  descended  to  her  by  a  long  and 
circuitous  route. 

Pantheism  was  a  well-known  feature  of  early 
Greek  speculation.  But  Greek  pantheism  tended 
to  atheism,  or  at  least  to  the  identification  of  God 


82   SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

with  the  material  universe.  If  carried  out  con- 
sistently it  would  make  the  material  universe  the 
reality,  and  reduce  all  lofty  conceptions  of  God 
to  illusions.  This  is  the  exact  reverse  of  the 
Hindu  tendency.  It  was  not  the  materialistic 
Greek  pantheism  that  the  early  church  found 
most  troublesome;  it  was  the  Hindu  pantheism, 
imported  from  India,  and  mixed  with  other  ele- 
ments. Nor  has  the  Greek  type  of  pantheism 
given  much  trouble  to  the  church  in  her  subse- 
quent history;  it  has  always  been  the  Hindu  type 
with  which  she  has  had  her  chief  contention. 

Hindu  pantheism  was  brought  into  contact  with 
early  Christianity  by  the  Neo-Platonists.  "The 
philosopher  Numenius,"  writes  Moller,  "a  fore- 
runner of  Neo-Platonism  proper,  sought  to 
gather  together  the  religiously  valuable  wisdom  of 
different  peoples,  of  the  Indian  Brahmans,  the 
Jews,  the  Persian  Magi,  and  the  Egyptians." 
Ever  since  that  time  this  philosophy  of  the  Brah- 
mans has  continued  to  confront  Christianity,  for 
though  it  has  often  been  subdued,  it  has 
never  been  wholly  destroyed,  and  has  been 
able  on  several  occasions  to  muster  mighty 
forces  and  deliver  great  battles.  The  last 
serious  combat  with  it  took  place  as  recently 
as  the  time  of  Fichte,  Schelling  and  Hegel.  Its 
chief  distinguishing  features  have  always  been  its 
assertion  of  the  more  or  less  illusory  character  of 
material  things,  its  tendency  to  overlook  or  to 
deny  sin,  and  its  deification  of  man. 

Neo-Platonism,    borrowing    one    of     its    chief 


ITS  PRECURSORS  83 

features  from  Brahmanism,  affirmed,  says  Uhl- 
horn,  that  "matter  is  the  negation  of  being." 
This  borrowed  doctrine  would  have  led,  of  itself, 
to  a  shallow  doctrine  of  sin.  But,  borrowing 
another  feature  from  the  Persian  dualism,  Neo- 
Platonism  affirmed  that  this  "negation  of  being" 
is  essentially  evil,  and  the  source  of  the  evil  which 
afflicts  the  soul,  and  it  arrived  thus  at  its  shallow 
doctrine  of  sin  by  a  more  circuitous  route.  Sin 
being  a  thing  of  the  body,  the  soul  can  break 
away  from  it  by  ecstasy  or  by  death.  Moreover, 
as  sin  is  only  a  thing  of  the  body,  there  is  the  less 
reason  to  hesitate  to  regard  the  soul  as  strictly  a 
divine  essence.  When  Plotinus  was  dying  he  said 
calmly  to  his  friends:  "I  am  struggling  to  liber- 
ate the  divinity  within  me."  In  this  manner  the 
three  chief  features  of  Hindu  pantheism  reap- 
peared in  Neo-Platonism.  Their  reappearance  in 
the  German  schools  of  pantheism  need  not  be 
illustrated,  since  those  schools  are  so  recent  and 
so  well  known. 

Though  these  features,  as  we  have  seen,  reap- 
pear once  more  in  Christian  Science,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Eddy  studied  any 
of  the  systems  from  which  her  theories  are  bor- 
rowed. Indeed,  her  book  is  so  chaotic,  so  full  of 
whimsies,  caprices,  and  impossibilities  of  thought, 
as  to  render  her  entire  ignorance  of  all  systematic 
philosophy  apparent.  Had  her  mind  been  bal- 
anced and  chastened  by  reading  any  treatise  on 
philosophy,  however  poor,  it  would  have  been 
saved   from   the    thousand-fold    confusions    into 


,84  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

which  it  has  fallen.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  how 
Christian  Science  has  been  derived  from  its 
precursors  by  an  unconscious  process. 

New  England  has  long  been  hospitable  to 
speculations  of  various  kinds.  She  was  unusually 
hospitable  to  the  transcendentalism  of  Schelling 
because  it  was  recommended  to  her  by  Emerson 
and  others  of  her  most  famous  and  most  beloved 
sons.  Thus  for  many  years  before  Mrs.  Eddy 
wrote,  there  was  much  pantheistic  mist  and  haze 
floating  in  the  air  about  her,  and  she  breathed  it 
in  her  childhood.  Later,  Boston  took  up  the 
study  of  theosophy,  and  came  into  contact  with  a 
form  of  Indian  thought  in  which  pantheistic  ele- 
ments had  a  place.  These  influences,  affecting 
even  the  newspapers,  and  through  them  the  whole 
population,  were  not  unfelt  by  the  founder  of 
Christian  Science.  Her  mind,  ingenious  though 
uninstructed,  quick  to  seize  a  plausible  thought, 
though  unable  to  distinguish  the  merely  plausible 
from  the  true,  or  to  connect  a  series  of  thoughts 
in  logical  sequence,  gathered  from  the  atmosphere 
the  few  truths  and  the  many  errors,  crudities, 
absurdities,  and  impossibilities  which  appear  in 
her  teachings.  A  few  leading  doctrines  may  be 
traced  through  them,  and  these  enable  the  student 
of  them  to  recognize  them  as  a  species  of  panthe- 
ism. But  along  with  these  there  is  so  much  of 
inconsistency,  of  self-contradiction,  and  of  folly, 
that  the  sober  reader  becomes  bewildered,  like 
one  who  walks  in  a  maze. 


VII 
THE    FUTURE    OF    CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

BY    BENJAMIN    A.    GREENE,    D.  D. 

It  has  a  future.  How  far  into  the  years  it  will 
project  itself,  how  widely  and  thoroughly  it  may 
spread,  no  one  can  predict.  This  much  can  be 
said,  and  ought  to  be  said,  to  some  who  treat  the 
whole  question  with  explosives  of  disgust :  it  has 
a  future  because  it  has  a  vigorous,  phenomenally 
growing  present,  because,  at  the  heart  of  this 
growth,  disagree  and  dissent  as  we  may,  there  is 
forcefully  evident  profound  conviction,  sincere 
reverence,  such  a  sense  of  discovery  and  victory 
in  daily  experience  as  to  make  many  lives  radiant 
with  joy  and  hope.  We  judge  the  future  by  what 
the  present  holds. 

ACCELERATING    MOMENTUM. 

Letters  of  inquiry  sent  to  persons  outside  of 
Christian  Science  circles,  in  eighteen  represent- 
ative cities  of  our  country,  bring  back  word  that 
it  is  still  making  headway,  and  in  most  places 
with  a  greatly  accelerated  momentum.  This 
testimony  is  confirmed  and  very  largely  supple- 
mented by  official  publications,  weekly  and 
monthly,  which  I  have  carefully  read.  In  New 
York  State  they  claim  that  the  number  was 
doubled  last  year.  In  1867  Mrs.  Eddy  had  one 
pupil.       To-day   we   find    in    the    "Directory   of 

85 


86  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

Christian  Science  Practitioners"  over  2,000  names 
with  city  and  street  address.  Every  state  in  the 
union  is  found  there,  also  Canada,  England, 
Scotland,  France,  Germany,  and  Hawaii  and 
China.  The  text-book,  "Science  and  Health," 
has  gone  through  160  editions,  and  the  call  is  for 
more.  Three  weeks  ago  Mr.  Kimball  claimed  in 
his  Chicago  lecture  that  Christian  Scientists  had 
nearly  2,000,000  instances  of  healing.  Make  such 
allowances  as  the  most  skeptical  insist  upon ;  even 
then  you  have  a  bulky,  vigorous  fact  striding 
to-day  where  it  was  creeping  only  yesterday.  It 
has  emerged  from  the  silence  of  contempt. 
Editors,  ministers,  medical  clubs,  legislatures, 
give  it  attention.  Such  an  aggressive  force  is 
bound  to  project  itself  yet  further.  It  has  a 
future. 

A    FEW    PARTICULAR    FEATURES. 

The  uniform  report  is  that  their  services  show  a 
happy  and  contented  company.  Something  gives 
them  joy.  Not  many  houses  of  worship  have 
been  built;  but  when  they  build,  they  dedicate 
free  of  debt.  It  takes  conviction  to  use  the 
pocketbook  in  that  way.  The  Sentinel  and  the 
Journal  give  in  every  issue  a  large  number  of 
letters.  Hard-headed  business  men,  as  well  as 
women  and  farmers,  open  their  hearts  in  testi- 
mony ;  specify  as  to  the  healing  that  has  come  to 
their  home,  sagacity  and  poise  to  their  business 
management,  and  spiritual  calm  to  their  minds ; 
and  then  give  name,  city,  street,  number.  Just 
such  testimonials  are  coveted  by  materia  medica 


ITS   FUTURE  87 

and  orthodox  churches.  They  are  willing  wit- 
nesses, and  zealous  in  distributing  literature.  In 
all  this  we  must  admit  "promise  and  potency"  for 
the  future. 

THE    USE    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

Though  this  is  eclectic,  fragmentary,  and,  now 
and  then,  flagrantly  absurd,  still  there  is  a  vital 
joining  upon  underlying  principles;  namely,  the 
divine  immanence,  the  communion  of  man  with 
the  Infinite,  casting  out  fear  through  love,  gaining 
peace  through  staying  the  mind  on  God,  divine 
power  and  promise  to  heal  all  manner  of 
diseases.  In  the  last  particular  they  claim  a 
fidelity  to  scripture  superior  to  that  of  their  critics. 
They  claim  to  demonstrate  the  truthfulness  of 
their  position  in  that  they  do  actually  cure  disease 
without  the  use  of  drugs.  Leaving  the  nature  of 
the  cures  until  later,  let  it  be  noted  that  Christian 
Science  insists  on  keeping  its  teaching  blended 
with  Bible  teaching.  The  mind  comes  in  contact 
sympathetically  with  some  of  its  vitalizing  truths. 
Such  buttressing  gives  strength  that  promises 
endurance.  Even  the  novel  interpretation 
awakens  interest  in  the  Bible  never  dreamed  of 
before.  Bringing  great  truths  to  bear  upon 
every-day  worries,  fears,  ailments,  and  securing 
thereby  quiet  of  mind  and  health,  invests  that 
interpretation,  in  spite  of  all  imperfections,  with  a 
glory  it  will  be  hard  to  dissipate.  Let  the  man 
who  applies  the  whole  scripture  to  his  whole  self 
cast  the  first  stone. 


S8  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

THE    LARGE,    WAITING    CLIENTAGE. 

There  is  no  fact  more  evident  than  that  of  the 
misery  and  restlessness  of  mankind  through 
disease.  How  many  million  dollars  are  paid 
annually  for  patent  medicines  to  heal  **  chronic 
lingerings,"  and  that,  too,  after  other  millions 
have  already  been  paid  to  physicians!  If  there 
be  such  a  thing  as  "the  law  of  supply  and 
demand,"  here  is  a  condition  of  things  that  will 
continue  to  make  large  demands.  And  among 
the  people  there  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  hygienic- 
messianic  expectation.  Some  are  looking  for 
deliverance  through  a  discovery  of  microbes; 
others  for  telepathic  channels  through  which  the 
health  of  God  may  surge  in  upon  the  ills  of  man. 
Christian  Science  is  in  search  of  the  man  who  has 
tried  physicians,  baths,  travel,  climate,  and  tried 
in  vain.  And  when  healing  comes  in  the  last 
resort,  the  mind  is  in  a  receptive  mood  for  what- 
ever teaching  accompanies  it.  Especially  the 
idea  of  union  with  the  Infinite,  bringing  calm, 
trust,  hope,  and  power  over  bodily  conditions,  is 
a  revelation,  a  joy.  Many  cling  to  that,  are  made 
staunch  converts.  The  accession  of  happy  con- 
verts makes  the  future  sure. 

THE    FASCINAIION    OF    A    SENSE    OF    POWER. 

When  homeopathy  first  came,  mothers,  not  a 
few,  provided  themselves  with  a  little  book  and  a 
box  of  bottles  filled  with  tinctured  pellets.  There 
was  a  font  of  healing  on  the  bureau  in  the  bed- 
room.    A  kind   man   would   sometimes  have  an 


ITS  FUTURE  89 

assortment  of  vials  in  his  pocket,  and,  as  he 
dropped  into  the  village  homes,  finding  sickness 
there,  would  administer  relief.  The  conscious- 
ness that  he  carried  with  him  remedial  forces  had 
a  fascinating  power  over  his  mind,  and  this, 
joined  with  his  benevolence,  kept  him  for  some 
time  at  his  philanthropic  work.  Here  it  is  not 
pellets  in  the  vest  pocket,  but  thoughts  in  the 
mind.  "What!"  says  a  man,  *'can  I,  by  holding 
my  mind  in  a  proper  attitude  toward  the  truth,  by 
opening  my  soul  to  the  incoming  infinite  love  and 
power,  become  a  channel  of  health  to  humanity 
around  me?"  "Yes,"  says  Christian  Science,  and 
the  marvel  of  that  possibility  is  still  in  the 
ascendant. 

THE    SIDE  WHERE    CONVERTS  MAKE    THEIR     APPROACH 

is  the  one  I  have  thus  far  dwelt  upon.  Deter- 
mination to  look  facts  in  the  face,  facts  that  are 
drawing  men  to-day,  and  to  be  candid  in  the 
statement  of  them,  is  absolutely  essential  to  fair 
treatment  and  a  satisfactory  judgment  with  re- 
gard to  the  future.  To  approach  Calvinism  on 
the  side  of  Servetus,  or  Puritanism  on  the  side  of 
Salem  witchcraft,  would  be  hardly  fair.  Nine- 
tenths  of  Christian  Scientists  confess  they  were 
drawn  to  the  movement  through  physical  benefit 
gained. 

THERE    IS    ANOTHER    SIDE. 

The  metaphysical  theory  as  to  the  unreality  of 
matter  and  disease  and  pain  is  like  the  bitterness 
of  the  physician's  pill.  Christian  Scientists  swal- 
low it.     They  do  not  care  to  argue  at  that  point. 


90  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

As  a  leading  judge  of  Chicago  recently  said:  "I 
do  not  know  that  we  can  explain  that;  but  so 
long  as  Christian  Scientists  give  to  humanity 
health  and  hope,  you  church  people  ought  not  to 
fight  them."  I  most  heartily  agree  with  him,  if 
by  that  term,  fight,  he  means  feelingless,  pebble- 
wit  flings,  poisoned-arrow  dartings  of  speech, 
vituperative  slow-fire,  thumb-screw  charges  of 
devilish  machinations.  But  I  do  not  agree  with 
him  if  it  means  an  unquestioning  capitulation  to 
all  the  claims  and  theories  of  Mrs.  Eddy. 
Thoughtful  discrimination  is  an  alphabetic  virtue 
in  listening  to  any  human  teacher.  Even  God 
himself  says,  "Come,  let  us  reason  together." 

THE    NEW    PSYCHOLOGICAL    ATMOSPHERE 

which  has  favored  the  growth  of  Christian  Science 
will  continue  to  favor  it.  A  growing  conviction 
as  to  the  power  of  mind  over  bodily  conditions  is 
"in  the  air."  Christian  Science  did  not  create 
this  conviction.  Hypnosis,  faith-cure,  mind-cure, 
had  also  been  emphasizing  it.  They  all  felt  the 
breath  of  a  common  evolutionary  process.  This 
psychological  condition,  while  fostering  the 
growth  of  Christian  Science,  shows  it  unmistak- 
ably to  be  one  of  a  class  (for  its  cures  are  cer- 
tainly duplicated  in  other  schools),  and,  therefore, 
discloses 

A    SWARMING    BROOD    OF    RIVALS. 

Mrs.  Eddy  claims  the  Bible  as  her  only  source 
of  knowledge,  and  yet  frankly  confesses  that  her 
"favorite  studies  were  natural  philosophy,  logic 
and  moral  science."     The  anthem  of  Emerson's 


ITS  FUTURE  91 

"Over-Soul"  had  been  reverberating  through 
New  England  for  twenty-five  years.  The  very 
year  she  began,  1866,  was  the  year  Dr.  P.  P. 
Quimby  died,  the  man  whose  original  contribu- 
tions in  this  line  form  the  basis  of  such  work  as 
Horatio  W.  Dresser  gives  us  in  *'The  Power  of 
Silence."  Indeed,  from  time  immemorial,  the 
marvelous  power  of  mind  over  body  has  been 
acknowledged.  "A  merry  heart  doeth  good  like 
a  medicine."  "It  is  part  of  the  cure  to  wish  to 
be  cured."  "  'Tis  the  mind  that  makes  the  body 
rich. ' '  Surely  Solomon,  Seneca,  Shakespeare  had 
inklings.  Physicians  who  use  drugs,  include,  in 
proportion  to  their  good  sense,  mental  conditions 
in  diagnosis  and  treatment.  Psychologists  have 
found,  in  hypnotism,  an  open  door  into  this  whole 
wide  realm.  Common  humanity  has  made  it  com- 
mon talk  for  ages,  *'If  you  charge  a  man's  mind 
with  good  news  and  good  cheer,  you  aid  digestion, 
quicken  circulation,  begin  to  build  physique  over 
again."  This  thought  has  had  currency;  but  it 
was  in  nickels  and  dimes.  What  has  long  been 
needed  is  larger  pieces ;  halves  and  "cart-wheels, ' ' 
$5  gold  pieces  and  bank  notes  with  two  or  three 
figures  on  them. 

THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCHES    OF    THE    FUTURE. 

Thoughts  are  vital  forces.  Truth  is  thought- 
force  bringing  freedom.  Words  are  "storage 
batteries."  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you,"  and  connected  by  spiritual  telephone  with 
the  King  eternal.     In  his  presence  is  fullness  of 


92  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

life.  These  are  the  quickening  revelations  now 
whispering  their  way  into  larger  and  larger 
acceptance.  In  such  literature  as  "Ideal  Sug- 
gestion," "In  Tune  with  the  Infinite,"  "The 
White  Cross  Library/*  we  have  a  new  phar- 
macopoeia widening  out  into  the  future.  Chris- 
tian Science  will  undoubtedly  share  largely  in 
this  expansion.  It  must  be  given  credit  for  dar- 
ing to  thrust  the  larger  pieces  of  currency  into  the 
broadest  circulation  thus  far. 

Christian  churches  will  be  made  to  feel  this  call 
to  give  the  power  of  God  a  broadening  application 
to  our  incarnate  life.  What  psychologists  are 
saying  with  united  emphasis,  what  mental  healers 
are  now  actually  proving,  will  come  with  cumu- 
lative urgency,  and  demand  that  we  bring  out  a 
class  of  scripture  long  time  held  in  abeyance,  and 
give  it  current  hygienic  value.  "The  prayer  of 
faith  shall  save  the  sick."  God  shall  quicken  our 
mortal  bodies,  while  they  are  alive,  through  the 
divine  tonic  of  his  Spirit's  indwelling.  Not  that 
disease  and  death  will  be  banished,  not  that  physi- 
cians and  surgeons  will  become  anachronisms, 
but  the  ills  of  flesh  may  be  forced  into  diminished 
area  and  the  glory  of  the  Christian's  final  victory 
be  preceded  by  anticipatory  thrills  of  triumph. 
Daily  living  will  be  more  of  a  victory  and  less  of 
a  defeat.  When  this  comes  true.  Christian  Sci- 
ence will  find  one  of  its  largest  tributaries  cut  off, 
and  the  church  of  Christ,  more  potent  by  reason 
of  added  and  emphasized  truth,  will  have  become 
the  better  prepared  for  new  triumphs. 


ITS  FUTURE  93 

DISINTEGRATING      INFLUENCES     ALREADY     AT     WORK. 

Growing  up  around  the  "Mother  Church"  in 
Boston  are  schools  of  healing  which  retain  the 
impersonal  elements  and  ignore  Mrs.  Eddy.  All 
through  the  country,  in  larger  centers,  this  is  the 
case.  In  Chicago  "The  Exodus  Club"  has  for  its 
chief  lecturer  Mrs.  Gesterfeld,  who  was  formerly 
Mrs.  Eddy's  "star-pupil,"  so  President  Trude  told 
me.  Jane  W.  Yarnall  writes  a  book,  taking  the 
same  ground.  In  Washington,  many  persons 
retain  church  membership  and  practice  what  they 
term  "applied  Christianity."  These  are  only 
straws  in  the  wind.  From  words  of  complaint, 
scattered  through  Christian  Science  literature, 
charging  plagiarism  and  ingratitude,  and  from 
the  more  rigid  restrictions  put  upon  the  public 
meetings,  it  is  evident  that  the  disintegrating 
process  is  already  seriously  felt,  and  what  it 
threatens  is  more  seriously  feared.  The  Come- 
outers  say  that 

MRS.    EDDY  CLAIMS   TOO  MUCH  FOR   HERSELF 
PERSONALLY. 

While  acknowledging  her  as  a  discoverer,  they 
think  that  truth,  "broad  as  the  cosmos,"  cannot 
"be  so  compressed  as  to  flow  only  through  one 
channel."  Christian  Science  is  "autocratic, 
rather  than  democratic";  "polity  and  ritual  in 
every  detail  are  shaped  and  directed  by  a  single 
will."  And  the  spirit  of  all  this  an  "outsider" 
easily  discovers  in  reading  Mrs.  Eddy's  works, 
e.  g.  "There  is  only  one  Christian  Science,  as 
there  is  only  one  Truth."     "The  wise  Christian 


94  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

Scientist  will  commend  students  and  patients  to 
the  teachings  of  'Science  and  Health'  and  the 
healing  efficacy  thereof,  rather  than  try  to  center 
interest  on  himself. "  "  TJie  Bible  and  my  books 
mislead  no  one.''  The  sermon  on  Sunday  is 
made  up  entirely  of  extracts  from  her  writings 
and  quotations  from  scripture.  There  are  no 
lecturers  recognized  except  those  appointed  and 
absolutely  governed  from  headquarters.  She 
out-popes  the  pope.  Recently  she  ordered  Dr. 
Geo.  Tompkins  from  the  lecture  platform  to  the 
more  private  sphere  of  healing,  and  he  meekly 
states  his  acquiescence  in  public  print.  A 
humbler  instance  of  submission  came  out  in  the 
Christian  Science  Weekly  last  November,  in  con- 
nection with  the  question  whether  clippings  could 
be  read  in  the  Wednesday  evening  meeting.  A 
"reader"  had  severely  chided  a  person  for  doing 
that.  If  it  be  contrary  to  Mrs.  Eddy's  wish,  this 
person  wrote  to  the  editor,  he  would  **beg  her 
pardon  and  promise  never  to  do  it  again. ' '  When 
Mrs.  Eddy  dies,  who  will  inherit  her  claims  to 
infallibility?  Will  not  that  event  precipitate  the 
process  of  disintegration? 

THE  "unreality"  HANDICAP. 

I.  As  to  matter.  Idealism  may  do  for  theoret- 
ical discussion,  but  take  it  out  into  work-a-day  life, 
it  will  not  work.  Mrs.  Eddy  insists,  for  the  mil- 
lionth time,  that  "matter  is  unreal"  ;  "knowledge 
gained  through  the  material  senses  is  ojily 
illusion,''     Stab  a  man;   red  blood  flows;    death 


ITS  FUTURE  95 

robs  a  family  of  support.  Illusion !  People  may 
swallow  that  absurdity  because  of  physical  benefit 
gained;  but,  in  the  long  run,  common  sense  will 
resume  operation.  It  is  sure  to  resume  when  the 
practical  Yankee  instinct  recovers  and  gets  back 
of  the  perception  which  enables  them  to  see  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  makes  the  very  shrewdest  use  of  the 
material  printing-press  for  the  advocacy  of  her 
unreal  "unreality,"  and  counts  on  good  eyeball 
vision  to  take  the  message  in.  Jupiter  sometimes 
nodded.  And  even  now  some  are  sorry  to  see 
that  their  ideal  leader  allowed  herself  to  be  caught 
nodding  in  that  she  sanctions  the  embossing 
of  her  features  on  a  silver  spoon  and  urges  each 
one  of  the  300,000  disciples  to  purchase  at  least 
one  material  souvenir  at  $4  apiece,  and  where 
they  can,  to  take  a  dozen  for  the  use  of  visiting 
friends.  The  "unreality"  theory  is  not  essential 
to  the  cures.  Those  who  reject  or  abandon  that 
phase  of  "The  Science  of  Being,"  and  yet  hold  to 
principles  common  to  several  schools,  still  succeed 
in  mental  therapeutics.  Even  "Father  John,"  of 
the  Russian  Church,  is  to-day  healing  with  extraor- 
dinary success.  People  run  out  to  meet  him  as 
they  ran  to  meet  Paul  at  Ephesus.  He  is  the 
sainted  miracle-worker  of  Kronstadt.  This  tying 
up  of  healing  power  with  the  "unreality"  theory 
reminds  me  of  a  woman  I  once  knew  who 
thoroughly  searched  the  Bible  with  a  view  to  suc- 
cessful defense  of  the  doctrine  of  the  sleep  of  the 
dead.  Because  she  had  spiritual  quickening 
through  contact  with  much  Bible  truth  in  pro- 


96  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

longed  study,  she  attributed  it  to  that  particular 
doctrine,  and  hence  that  doctrine  must  be  true. 

2.  As  to  sin.  In  "Unity  of  Good"  Mrs.  Eddy 
speaks  of  the  ^'illusio7i  which  calls  sin  real, 
Q.n6.  ina7t  a  sinner  yieeding  a  Savior.'"  She  began 
with  the  unreality  of  disease.  She  would  drive 
the  thought  of  disease  out  of  mind,  insist  on 
letting  the  health- thought  come  in,  fill  her,  and 
deny  the  intruder  right  of  place.  In  stress  of 
battle,  there  at  that  victorious  point,  she  thought 
she  had  a  revelation  of  a  wide-reaching  principle. 
*'Godis  All;  God  is  Good;"  therefore,  "there  is 
no  such  thing  as  disease  or  evil,"  both  are 
"illusions."  Danger  here  for  the  future.  Con- 
ditional sentences  may  be  thrown  in  freely;  posi- 
tive injunctions  to  be  kind,  just  and  pure  may  be 
added;  but  that  underlying  principle  of  the 
"unreality  of  evil"  plunges  a  dagger  through  the 
Bible  doctrine  of  a  man's  individual  accountability 
and  lets  out  the  very  heart-blood  of  Christ's  dis- 
tinctive teaching.  To  see  what  might  be  the 
worked-out  results  of  that  teaching  in  remote 
time  and  place,  we  have  only  to  turn  to  history 
and  read  of  Antinomian  license.  The  opposite 
extreme,  holding  true  now,  as  I  have  been  told, 
in  isolated  instances,  goes  to  show  just  that  weak- 
ness of  extremes  which  warns  of  a  possible  pen- 
dulum swing  later. 

HOW    SHALL    WE    TREAT    CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    IN    THE 
FUTURE? 

Treat  it  kindly  as  you  would  a  brother.  Face 
all  the  facts.     Frankly  acknowledge  every  iota  of 


ITS  FUTURE  97 

good.  Just  as  frankly  call  attention  to  what  you 
sincerely  believe  to  be  error  and  danger.  To 
ignore  it,  boycott  it,  set  yourself  dogmatically 
against  it,  saying  it  is  nothing  but  a  tissue  of 
deception,  is  as  unreasonable  as  you  try  to  make 
out  Christian  Science  to  be.  The  ordinary  church 
member  with  his  worry  and  fear,  with  a  religion 
that  does  not  give  him  a  baptism  of  strength  and 
joy  to-day,  with  lips  unable  or  unwilling  to  wit- 
ness for  the  divine  power,  may  learn  a  very  useful 
lesson  from  Christian  Scientists.  *'Tell  how  great 
things  the  Lord  hath  done  for  you."  Mrs.  Eddy 
may  claim,  as  she  does,  that  she  "introduced  the 
first  purely  metaphysical  healing  since  the  apostles' 
day,"  that  scripture  itself  *'gave  no  scientific 
basis  for  demonstrating  spiritual  principle  until 
the  Heavenly  Father  saw  fit  in  'Science  and 
Health'  to  unlock  the  mystery  of  godliness."  But 
she  is  mistaken.  She  is  human,  and  she  shows 
her  frailty  as  did  Luther  when  he  said  that  the 
Epistle  of  James  was  an  epistle  of  straw,  as  did 
Miller  when  he  fixed  upon  1843  for  the  second 
coming  of  our  Lord.  Gautama  was  human. 
Mohammed  was  very  human.  Both  of  these  sys- 
tems have  lasted  through  centuries.  Mrs.  Eddy 
says:  "Centuries  will  elapse  before  the  topics  of 
'Science  and  Health'  are  sufficiently  understood 
to  be  fully  demonstrated."  Her  name  may 
ascend  and  find  place  amid  the  century  constella- 
tions.    But  I  have  my  doubts. 


VIII 
THE  ERRORS  OF  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

BY    CEPHAS    B.    CRANE,   D.D. 

Few  of  the  readers  of  The  Standard  could  be 
more  interested  than  myself  in  the  foregoing  able 
articles  upon  Christian  Science.  I  was  living  in 
Boston,  which  was  then  her  city,  when  Mrs.  Eddy 
began  to  attract  public  attention  to  herself  and  to 
her  system.  At  a  later  period  v^e  both  had  our 
homes  in  Concord,  N.  H.,  where  I  often  saw  her 
in  her  daily  drives,  and  where  I  became  some- 
what acquainted  with  the  story  of  her  life  and 
achievements. 

It  is  plain  that  the  writers  of  the  articles  sought 
to  be  fair,  even  generous,  in  their  estimate  of 
Christian  Science.  They  showed  the  chivalric 
spirit  which  ought  always  to  characterize  men 
when  they  pass  judgment  upon  the  achievements 
of  women.  I  cannot  see  how  Mrs,  Eddy,  or  any 
of  her  followers,  can  bring  a  charge  of  injustice 
or  harshness.  All  that  is  true  and  good  in  Chris- 
tian Science  was  warmly  commended.  Probably 
I  am  not  the  only  reader  of  the  articles  who 
perceived,  or  imagined,  that  the  writers  did  not  at 
all  points  agree  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
system.     But  this  is  not  at  all  to  their  discredit. 

98 


ITS  ERRORS  ggr 

The   fault   is  with  the   system.      It  is  not  self- 
consistent,  and  it  is  nebulous.     The  scientific  and 
philosophical  and  theological  language  of  it  is  to 
an  amazing  degree  indefinite  and  elusive.     There 
is   constant   contradiction    in    terms.      Familiar 
words  are   charged   with    unfamiliar    meanings. 
The  thoughtful  and  well-instructed  reader  is  per- 
plexed that  he  cannot  get  out  of  the  fog  into  clear 
air.     He  is  baffled   at  every  turn.     Emerson  is 
sometimes  called  obscure,  for  the  reason  that  he 
leaves  the  reader  to  supply  the  minor  connective 
sentences.     But  no  most  accomplished  reader  can 
supply  the   minor    connective  sentences  of    the 
text-book  of  Christian  Science.     There  is  a  per- 
petual   to    and    fro     movement    between    what 
appears  to  be  logic  and  what  is  sentimentalism 
and    mysticism.      If    it   were   either    logical    or 
rhapsodical  or  apocalyptic,  one  might  get  at  the 
gist  of  it.     But  the  trouble  is  that  it  is  a  com- 
pound of  all  that  these  adjectives  signify.     For- 
midable   postulates   are   verified    by   fancy   and 
emotion.     It  is  vain  for  one  who  is  balked  by  an 
apparent  conclusion  to  go  back  to  discover  the 
premises.      The   premises   are   not   there.      The 
conclusion  is  an  affirmation  without  visible  sup- 
port.     So    one    reads    on,   every  moment  more 
hopelessly  bewildered. 

The  palpable  truth  in  Christian  Science  is  that 
what  the  uninitiated  multitude  call  the  body  is  to 
less  or  greater  degree  affected  by  the  mind. 
Many  pains  and  aches  vanish  at  once  when  we  are 
made  to  believe  that  there  is  no  cause  nor  reason 


loo  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

for  them.  I  have  more  than  once  had  such 
deliverances  when  my  doctor  has  told  me  that 
nothing  ailed  me.  Indeed,  only  last  week  I 
delivered  a  man  in  precisely  this  way.  Hysterics 
and  hiccough  can  be  abolished  by  an  imperative. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  certain  states  of  the  body 
are  determined  by  certain  states  of  the  mind. 
But  this  is  no  new  discovery.  The  doctors  have 
helped  patients  wonderfully  by  bread-pills,  and  a 
few  drops  of  water  disguised  under  the  cloak 
of  a  harmless  essence.  If  they  say  bread-pill  and 
pure  water,  their  prescription  fails;  but  if  they 
say  pa7iis  pilula  and  aqua  pura^  the  prescription 
works  like  magic.  As  to  the  more  obstinate  evils 
of  ulcer  and  cancer  and  a  broken  leg — but  that  is 
another  story. 

The  exhortation  to  trust  and  serenity,  con- 
stantly given  by  the  hierophants  of  Christian 
Science,  and  usually  obeyed  by  the  neophytes,  is 
accounted  a  praiseworthy  exhortation.  But  trust 
and  serenity,  if  they  rest  upon  a  false  foundation, 
are  pathetic.  "I  am  perfectly  well,"  said  a 
yoimg  woman  to  me  at  our  seaside  hotel,  who 
was  constantly  reading  the  text-book  of  Christian 
Science,  and  who  kept  her  neighbors  awake  in  the 
night  with  her  distressing  cough.  Poor  girl! 
She  returned  to  her  home  in  California  to  die. 
Trust  and  serenity  are  really  admirable  only  when 
they  are  warranted  by  the  facts  in  the  case. 
Otherwise,  they  awaken  in  us  an  unspeakable  pity. 

Christian  Science  claims  to  be  a  science,  a 
philosophy  and  a  theology.     In  my  judgment  it  is 


ITS   ERRORS  loi 

no  one  of  them.  As  a  science  it  begins  by  mak- 
ing all  other  sciences,  particularly  the  physical 
sciences,  preposterous.  For  according  to  it,  since 
matter  is  an  illusion,  and  all  is  mind,  astronomy, 
geology,  botany,  paleontology,  medicine,  are 
baseless.  The  men  of  eminence  in  these  sciences 
waste  their  time  upon  "chimeras  ruminating  in  a 
vacuum."  Nor  can  the  Christian  Scientist  save 
himself  here  by  classing  himself  v/ith  accredited 
spiritual  monists.  For  the  clear-eyed  monist, 
even  though  he  affirms  mind  to  be  the  one  and 
only  substance,  does  not  dream  of  saying  that  the 
ordered  phase  of  being  to  which  we  give  the  name 
of  matter  is  an  illusion.  He  calls  it  a  reality. 
There  may  be  two  spiritual  systems,  the  one  as 
real  and  permanent  as  the  other.  The  triangle  is 
an  idea,  and  the  circle  is  an  idea,  but  neither  can 
abolish  the  other. 

Meanwhile,  how  can  there  be  mental  science 
when  personality,  even  the  personality  of  God, 
vanishes  into  the  impersonality  of  a  principle? 
Or  how  can  there  be  mental  science  when  the 
axiomatic  first  truths  upon  which  all  science  must 
build  are  flatly  denied? 

Christian  Science  is  not  a  philosophy.  It  is 
subjective  idealism  gone  mad.  Professor  Bowne, 
of  Boston  University,  and  Professor  Royce,  of 
Harvard  University,  are  both  eminent  exponents 
of  philosophical  idealism.  They  construe  what 
we  call  matter  in  terms  of  mind.  But  they  would 
never  dream  of  calling  that  system  of  things,  that 
established   and  permanent  order,  to  which    we 


102    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

give  the  name  of  matter,  an  illusion.  They 
stoutly  affirm  its  reality.  They  bid  us  respect 
it,  and  conform  our  action  to  it.  They  eat  and 
drink,  knock  out  the  stones  that  get  wedged  in  the 
shoes  of  their  horses,  send  for  the  doctor  and  take 
his  medicine,  without  a  spasm  of  uneasy  feeling 
that  they  are  contradicting  their  own  philosophy. 
But  when  the  Christian  Scientist  does  these  things 
he  practically  abjures  his  philosophy.  Why  eat 
and  drink  if  you  have  no  body  with  a  hungry  and 
thirsty  stomach?  Why  knock  out  the  stone  under 
your  horse's  foot  when  there  is  no  stone  and  you 
have  no  horse?  Why  take  medicine,  when  disease 
is  an  illusion?  True,  the  Christian  Scientist 
refuses  the  medicine,  even  if  he  has  to  die  for  it. 
But  why  does  he  not  also  refuse  the  butcher's 
meat  and  the  bread?  Why  does  he  not  allow  his 
foolish  horse  to  go  on  limping  under  the  delusion 
that  he  has  a  stone  under  his  hoof?  In  theory  he 
denies  the  existence  of  what  goes  by  the  name 
of  the  material  world;  in  practice  he  respects  it 
as  fully  as  do  all  the  rest  of  us.  Of  what  value 
is  that  philosophy  to  which  the  conduct  of  life 
cannot  possibly  conform? 

Christian  Science  is  not  a  theology.  How  can 
it  be  a  theology,  when  God  is  in  one  sentence 
falteringly  named  a  person,  and  in  the  next  sen- 
tence stoutly  affirmed  to  be  a  principle?  Person 
or  principle — which?  Speak  plainly,  my  friend, 
that  we  may  know  **  where  we  are  at. "  It  is  clear 
that  here  our  friend  is  floundering  in  the  slough 
of  a  misunderstood  pantheism. 


ITS  ERRORS  103 

The  theology  of  Christian  Science,  in  its  effort 
to  be  true  to  its  idealistic  philosophy,  has  the 
temerity  to  pronounce  sin  an  illusion.  That 
surely  is  an  astounding  assumption.  But  philo- 
sophical idealism  does  not  require  that  one  thus  fly 
in  the  face  of  things.  Professors  Bowne  and 
Royce  blister  sin  with  fierce  invectives.  They 
deny  that  it  is  an  illusion.  They  affirm  its  reality, 
its  punishableness,  man's  need  of  deliverance 
from  it. 

On  the  whole,  I  should  say  that  Christian  Sci- 
ence ought  to  go  to  school.  Let  it  take  a 
thorough  course,  under  competent  teachers,  in 
physical  science,  philosophy,  and  theology,  and  it 
will  slough  its  absurdities,  become  conformable 
to  reason  and  faith,  and  become  capable  of  being 
fairly  understood  by  the  average  man. 


IX 

SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  PRACTICAL 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

BY    E.    S.    PLIMPTON 

In  the  previous  articles  a  most  generous  attitude 
has  been  maintained  towards  Christian  Science. 
Curative  results  have  freely  been  granted,  and 
the  successes  claimed  have  not  been  disputed.  In 
fact,  one  of  the  greatest  reasons  for  its  spread  has 
been  given:  "It  cures!"  Indeed,  this  is  cited  as 
the  cause.  But  in  all  fairness  may  not  another 
reason  be  stated?     It  pays. ' 

IT    IS    PROFITABLE. 

While  hesitating  to  make  the  charge  that  selfish 
considerations  are  consciously  paramount,  is  it 
possible  that  any  system  shall  be  exceedingly 
remunerative  to  its  promoters  and  they  be  v^holly 
uninfluenced  by  this  profit?  I  have  before  me  the 
Christian  Science  Sentinel,  the  great  organ  of  the 
system,  published  in  Boston,  dated  February  i6, 
1899.  In  this  paper  nine  columns  are  devoted  to 
the  recital  of  the  history  of  the  litigation,  in  v/hich 
Mrs.  Eddy  is  the  complainant,  of  the  violation  of 
her  copyright  of  the  book  "Science  and  Health," 
and  of  other  of  her  v^ritings,  and  a  copy  of  the 

104 


SOME  PRACTICAL  INCIDENTS  105 

court  decree  granting  her  a  perpetual  injunction 
in  the  case  is  given.  The  copyright  is  thus  sus- 
tained, and  she  is  sustained  in  her  claim  of 
exclusive  right  of  publication  and  sale  and  the 
consequent  profit  therefrom. 

That  this  is  no  valueless  decree  is  shown  by  the 
accompanying  price  list  of  her  works,  among 
which  "Science  and  Health"  is  quoted  at  $2.75 
per  copy  for  twelve  or  more  copies  to  one  address, 
or  $3.18  singly.  This  is  for  the  cloth  edition. 
Since  books  of  equal  volume,  style  of  binding  and 
paper  are  freely  on  sale  at  75  cents,  there  is  left  a 
matter  of  $2  or  so  to  the  credit  of  the  copyright. 
In  the  publication  of  160,000  copies  at  this  rate 
the  profit  is  clearly  enormous. 

But  this  is  not  the  sole  source  of  income,  for 
other  publications  are  sold  in  lesser  number  but 
with  corresponding  margin  of  profit.  Also,  to  all 
this  must  be  added  the  substantial  fees  charged 
for  teaching.  These  are  all  Mrs.  Eddy's  own 
personal  property. 

The  class-teaching  may  have  ceased,  but  the 
books  are  a  veritable  mine  of  wealth.  No  wonder 
she  protects  them  even  by  law,  and  no  copy  can 
ever  reach  an  ignorant  world  except  through  the 
channel  of  her  copyright.  But  this  "Science  and 
Health"  is  accepted  and  used  as  a  companion  to 
the  Bible.  Think  of  a  royalty  on  every  copy  of 
the  Word  of  God!  Think,  too,  of  the  vast  differ- 
ence in  price.  A  full,  complete  copy  of  the  one 
may  be  had  for  25  cents;  of  the  other  with  far  less 
volume  the  cost  is  $2.75.     Most  surely  were  the 


io6    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

air  that  we  breathe  and  by  God's  free  bounty- 
have  in  abundant  supply,  subject  to  such  man  or 
woman's  control,  every  inhalation  would  be 
taxed. 

IS  A  SOURCE  OF   PROFIT  TO  OTHERS. 

That  the  teaching  of  Christian  Science  as  well 
as  its  practice  is  profitable  is  seen  by  this  illustra- 
tion, which  is  only  one  of  multitudes  of  instances, 
and  I  will. here  state  that  no  incident  but  those 
personally  known  to  the  writer  will  be  cited. 

A  merchant  gave  up  a  paying  business  to 
become  a  teacher  of  Christian  Science.  This 
was  some  years  ago  when  teaching  was  popular. 
He  went  to  Boston  and  took  a  course  of  lessons 
from  Mrs.  Eddy  herself,  at  the  regular  price  of 
$300  for  twelve  lessons.  He  then  returned  home, 
secured  classes  numbering  in  some  cases  as  high 
as  twenty,  at  $50  for  the  twelve-lesson  course. 
Thus  six  pupils  pay  his  own  tuition,  and  the 
remainder  of  receipts  is  largely  profit.  In  their 
turn  these  pupils  become,  or  seek  to  become, 
teachers  and  practitioners,  the  former  at  $5  per 
pupil,  and  the  latter  at  $1  to  $2  a  treatment.  The 
money  profit  is  great,  if  at  all  successful,  and 
both  this  success  and  profit  are  contingent  upon 
the  spread  of  the  desire  for  instruction  or  treat- 
ment. Thus,  a  strong  motive  exists  for  diligent 
promotion  of  the  doctrine. 

Has  this  motive  been  without  effect?  The 
writer's  experience  has  been  that  those  practition- 
ers of  the  system  who  hold  to  it  most  firmly  are 


SOME  PRACTICAL  INCIDENTS  107 

of  the  class  of  persons  that  we  recognize  as  being 
thrifty,  able  to  make  the  most  of  what  comes  in 
their  way.  Again  I  ask,  is  the  fact  of  profit  with- 
out its  influence?  Is  not  the  world  full  of 
examples  of  the  promotion  of  that  which  promises 
returns  of  great  profit  to  the  promoters?  May 
not,  indeed,  the  question  of  profit  compete  with, 
if  not  overshadow,  other  incentives?  In  what 
feature  of  this  phase  of  the  question  is  there 
harmony  with  the  command  of  Jesus:  '* Freely  ye 
have  received,  freely  give"? 

But  it  may  be  said,  "We  give  adequate 
returns  for  our  teaching  and  our  treatment. 
People  need  not  come  to  us ;  we  do  not  compel 
them."  But  is  not  the  promise  of  healing  to  one 
in  suffering  in  some  degree  a  compulsion?  I 
know  of  no  class  of  practitioners  who  are  so 
profuse  in  such  promises.  Moreover,  there  is 
always  a  hazy  mystery  maintained  that  of  itself  is 
exceedingly  fascinating.  It  partakes  of  the 
mystery  that  describes  the  drugs  of  a  prescription 
in  an  unknown  tongue,  or  that  adds  to  the  awe 
of  a  religious  service  by  reciting  it  in  Latin. 
Clothed  in  verbiage  and  vaguely  worded  ambi- 
guity, its  power  is  great. 

FAILURE    FREQUENT. 

But  these  promises  are  not  always  fulfilled.  I 
could  mention  instance  after  instance  within  my 
own  knowledge.  One  or  two  of  these  may  be 
given.  A  woman  with  a  diseased  finger  that  per- 
sistently resisted  medical  effort  was  told  that  it 


io8    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

must  be  amputated.  The  surgeon  came  from  a 
distance  to  operate,  but  a  Christian  Science  prac- 
titioner, on  hearing  of  his  coming,  went  to  the 
home  of  the  poor  woman  and  so  worked  upon  her 
as  to  gain  her  refusal  to  submit,  and  the  surgeon 
went  home  without  doing  the  work.  The  Chris- 
tian Science  woman  assured  the  patient  that  she 
could  and  would  restore  the  hand  and  save  her 
finger,  and  at  once  began  treatment  that  went  on 
for  some  weeks,  the  disease  in  the  meantime 
constantly  spreading  until  at  last  a  greater  part 
of  the  hand  was  involved,  and  the  surgeon  was 
again  sent  for  and  left  her  but  the  small  stub  of 
a  hand,  which  then  healed  and  saved  her  the  loss 
of  her  arm.  This  poor  remnant  of  a  hand  I  have 
more  than  once  seen. 

Again,  the  two  most  prominent  women  who 
teach  and  practice  Christian  Science  in  this  com- 
munity are  both  widows  within  a  year  from  this 
date.  But  the  strangest  part  of  all  is  the  com- 
placency with  which  a  death  under  Christian 
Science  treatment  is  viewed  by  those  in  charge. 
Surprise,  grief,  regret  seem  utterly  absent,  as 
possibly  they  may  well  be,  for  death  is  unreal,  and 
there  is  no  cause  for  grief,  for  he  has  only 
*' passed  on." 

STRIKES    AT    COMMON    SENSE. 

A  young  lady,  a  teacher  in  our  city  schools,  had 
a  boil  upon  her  fair  cheek.  As  it  inflamed  and 
grew,  it  attracted  much  notice,  and  the  more  so 
because  it  so  disfigured  her  beauty.     She,  when 


SOME   PRACTICAL   INCIDENTS  109 

Spoken  to,  declared  it  was  not  a  boil ;  it  was  but 
the  "belief  of  a  boil,"  therefore  she  allowed  it  to 
take  its  course  unmolested  except  by  the  "nega- 
tion" that  she  and  her  friends  brought  to  bear 
upon  it.  But  the  boil  flourished,  attested  her 
sense  of  its  presence  by  the  tears  which  the  pain, 
in  spite  of  her,  would  cause,  it  being  so  near  her 
eye,  suppurated,  scabbed,  and  dried  up  all 
untouched,  and  left  a  purple  spot  as  a  protest 
against  neglect. 

WEAKENS    VERACITY. 

A  merchant  whose  word  had  never  been  ques- 
tioned, bargained  to  exchange  with  another  cer- 
tain real  estate.  The  other  party  offered  to  make 
a  payment  at  the  time  which  should  bind  the 
bargain,  but  was  assured  that  his  word  was  good, 
and  that  each  could  trust  the  other  to  fulfill  his 
part.  After  some  days  it  was  known  that  the 
merchant  had  sold  his  land  to  still  another  man. 
At  once  the  first  party  went  to  him,  and  having 
learned  the  truth,  remonstrated.  "But,"  said  the 
merchant,  "you  can't  blame  me,  I  got  $200 
more."  "But  you  gave  me  your  word." 
"Well,"  impatiently,  "there  isn't  anything  that's 
real."  This  man  was  and  is  a  Christian  Science 
man.  What  becomes  of  business  integrity  with 
such  views  of  obligation? 

WOULD  DESTROY    SCIENTIFIC    SKILL  AND  KNOWLEDGE. 

A  daughter  was  taken  from  our  city  school 
because  physiology  and  hygiene  are  in  the  course 
of  study.     For  months  she  had  no  instruction,  but 


no   SEARCHLIGHTS  ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

later  was  sent  where,  by  payment  of  tuition,  such 
study  could  be  avoided.  Such  a  course  is  the 
legitimate  fruit  of  the  denial  of  disease  or  disa- 
bility, and  the  consequent  rejection  and  disuse  of 
surgical  or  medical  skill.  One  cannot  fail  to 
wonder  what  course  of  treatment  would  be 
adopted  in  case  of  a  cinder  in  the  eye.  Would  it 
be  left  to  stay  or  come  out,  as  the  case  might  be? 
Or,  if  it  were  too  deep  ever  to  come  out  or  to  be 
gotten  without  instruments  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose, would  they  be  used? 

A  poor  drunken  young  man,  whose  parents 
lived  on  one  of  my  farms,  had  a  cancer  on  his 
cheek.  It  was  malignant  and  corrupt.  On  a  hot 
summer  day  he  lay  in  a  drunken  stupor  and  the 
unprotected  sore  was  covered  with  flies.  Mag- 
gots, too,  were  rolling  and  tumbling  over  each 
other  in  plain  sight  and  also  deep  down  in  the 
flesh.  If  this  young  man  in  his  desperate  condi- 
tion were  placed  under  Mrs.  Eddy's  treatment, 
v/hat  would  she  do?  Nay,  if  he  were  her  own  son, 
and  there  are  many  as  wayward  sons  of  as  noble 
mothers,  what  would  she  do?  Would  the  harm- 
less, at  least  to  the  feasting  vermin,  negation  or 
demonstration  satisfy  her  mother-heart?  Would 
it  any  mother's  heart? 

Are  microbes  that  can  be  seen  only  with  the  aid 
of  a  glass  less  real  than  those  seen  by  the  eye  in 
this  man's  cheek?  If  actual  remedies  or  applica- 
tions are  used  to  destroy  or  counteract  the  one, 
should  they  be  discarded  in  the  other?  Many 
diseases  are  germ  diseases.     But,  must  Christian 


SOME   PRACTICAL  INCIDENTS  iii 

Science  ignore  those  other  diseases  whose  cause 
is  vice  and  crime?  Are  the  elite  of  diseases  to  be 
reserved  as  its  special  own? 

Will  a  demonstration  tie  a  severed  artery? 
Will  it  suffice  in  place  of  the  necessary  severance 
and  closing  of  the  artery  at  birth?  But,  if  not, 
then  surgery  is  admitted,  and  once  permitted  to 
compete  for  success,  who  has  any  doubt  as  to  its 
outcome?  In  a  railroad  accident  where  there 
were  the  maimed,  the  fractured,  the  injured 
externally  and  internally,  would  a  detachment  of 
Christian  Science  healers  receive  a  cordial  wel- 
come from  the  wounded  and  suffering  if  such 
were  sent  on  a  relief  train  instead  of  surgeons  and 
actual  doctors  to  their  rescue?  Why  do  not 
Christian  Science  practitioners  establish  their 
claims  for  relative  efficiency  as  do  other  schools  of 
healing,  when  they,  in  large  city  hospitals,  take 
their  turns  of  the  cases  of  accident  and  disease, 
and  a  careful  and  correct  record  is  kept  of  every 
case  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  it? 

A    FRUITLESS    STRUGGLE. 

An  infant  was  sick ;  a  Christian  Science  practi- 
tioner, a  neighbor,  called  and  offered  to  treat  the 
child.  It  was  evening,  and  the  child  lay  in  its 
cradle  in  a  darkened  room.  The  treatment 
began.  That  cold,  repellent  look  that  indicates 
the  mental  fight  with  an  unseen  foe,  was  on  her 
face.  After  a  long  time  the  father  in  his  grief 
felt  that  he  must  see  his  child.  He  went  to  the 
cradle  and  was  horrified  to  find  his  darling  cold 


112   SEARCHLIGHTS   ON  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

and  almost  stiffened  in  death.  During  nearly  the 
whole  time  of  treatment  the  dear  child  had  been 
dead.  The  forbidding  aspect  had  kept  death  at 
bay  not  an  instant,  and  the  silent  operator  had 
been  treating  a  corpse. 

THE    REAL    DANGER. 

But  the  most  pitiable  of  all,  because  of  its  far- 
reaching  consequences,  is  yet  to  be  told.  Eternal 
salvation  is  at  stake.  Without  faith  in  an 
atoning  Savior  the  gospel  is  an  unmean- 
ing word.  The  atonement  of  Christ  is  of  no 
avail  to  those  who  willfully  reject  it  or  know- 
ingly and  of  purpose  deny  it.  But  w^ho  can 
affirm  or  believe  in  that  which  he  declares  never 
took  place,  and  for  which  there  is  not  only  no 
necessity  but  no  possibility?  If  there  can  be  any 
surer  way  to  keep  a  soul  away  from  its  only 
Savior  than  to  deny  that  there  is  a  Savior,  and 
to  assert  that  by  no  sort  of  means  could  such  a 
Savior  be  needful  or  even  possible,  such  way  has 
not  been  devised.  A  soul  without  a  Savior  is  a 
lost  soul. 

I  cannot  believe  that  Mrs.  Eddy,  or  other 
Christian  Science  teachers,  realize  the  conse- 
quences of  the  rejection  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
as  the  atoning  Savior,  or  the  failure  to  accept 
him  if  once  made  known.  "He  is  the  propitia- 
tion for  our  sins. "  So  to  interpret  scripture  as  to 
do  away  with  salvation  through  faith  in  Christ  is 
to  pervert,  to  destroy  that  blessed  way  of  life, 
than  which  there  is  no  other.     An  ostentatious 


SOME   PRACTICAL   INCIDENTS  113 

use  of  the  Bible  can  make  no  amends  for  destroy- 
ing its  very  essence.  That  soul  which  feels  a 
confident  security  for  eternity  because  of  the  pos- 
session of  a  certain  undefined  benevolence  of 
feeling  toward  God,  which  he  persuades  himself 
God  feels  toward  him,  is  in  great  danger. 
Nowhere  in  his  word  can  we  find  any  approach  to 
the  Holy  One  by  sinful  man  except  through  a 
Mediator.  To  do  away  with  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
atoning  Mediator  is  to  bar  the  only  way  of  access 
to  God,  the  Eternal.  Whatever  does  this  is  fatal, 
be  it  fashionable,  attractive,  or  clothed  in  the 
form  and  character  of  the  great  adversary  of 
human  souls.  It  is  just  as  deadly  to  go  over 
Niagara  in  a  gilded  boat  as  upon  a  raft  of  logs. 


X 

THE  FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE  OF 
CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

BY    O.    P.   GIFFORD,   D.  D. 

Christian  Science  has  a  hard  time  getting  itself 
understood ;  it  has  a  wide  hearing,  but  finds  few 
with  understanding  hearts.  It  stands,  like  the 
temple,  with  its  outer  court  of  the  Gentiles,  court 
of  the  women,  court  of  Israel,  and  its  holy  place. 
The  outer  courts  are  crowded,  but  there  be  few 
who  enter  the  holy  place,  and  stand  with  the  high 
priestess  face  to  face  with  the  truth.  There  are 
many  who  accept  and  profit  by  the  health,  few 
who  understand  the  science  of  the  movement. 
Many  catch  glimpses  of  the  truth  that  lies  like 
the  blue  sky  beyond  the  clouds,  but  few 
have  reached  the  heights  and  live  above  the 
clouds  always  in  the  light.  This  difficulty  of 
understanding  lies  first  in  the  form;  second,  in 
the  substance  of  Christian  Science. 

DIFFICULTIES    IN    THE    FORM    OF    CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE. 

Its  form  is  the  English  language,  but  the  words 
are  used  in  a  foreign  sense.  M.  Taine  says  of 
*•  Paradise  Lost":  "This  Adam  entered  Paradise 
via  England.      There  he  learned  respectability, 

114 


ITS   FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE  115 

and  there  he  studied  moral  speechifying.  Adam 
is  your  true  pater  familias,  with  a  vote,  an  M.  P., 
an  old  Oxford  man,  consulted  at  need  by  his  wife, 
dealing  out  to  her  with  prudent  measure  the 
scientific  explanations  which  she  requires."  So 
we  may  say  of  "Science  and  Health."  It  reached 
Boston  via  the  Tower  of  Babel ;  it  confounds  a 
fairly  sensible  tongue  and  thus  confuses  thought. 
The  glossary,  added  to  the  classic  of  **  Science  and 
Health,"  attempts  to  "elucidate  the  meaning  of 
the  inspired  writer."  "It  contains  the  meta- 
physical interpretation  of  Bible  terms,  giving 
their  spirituaUense,  which  is  also  their  original 
meaning."  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in 
another  sentence  metaphysical,  spiritual  and  orig- 
inal serving  as  synonyms.  Such  use  of  words 
reminds  of  Hamlet  and  Polonius: 

Ham. — "Do  you  see  yonder  cloud  that's  almost 
in  shape  of  a  camel?" 

Pol. — "By  the  mass,  and  'tis  like  a  camel, 
indeed." 

Ham. — "Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel." 

Pol. — "It  is  backed  like  a  weasel." 

Ham. — "Or  like  a  whale." 

Pol. — "Very  like  a  whale." 

This  shifting,  cloud-like  use  of  words  is  very 
puzzling;  it  changes  the  frontiers  of  thought  so 
frequently  that  one  scarce  dares  invest  lest  his 
property  slip  from  his  grasp.  Adam  is  defined  in 
this  metaphysical,  spiritual,  original  glossary  to 
mean: 

"Error;    a  falsity:    the  belief  in  original  sin, 


Ii6  SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

sickness  and  death ;  evil ;  the  opposite  of  Good,  or 
God,  and  his  creation ;  a  curse :  a  belief  in  intel- 
ligent matter,  finiteness  and  mortality;  dust  to 
dust;  red  sandstone;  nothingness;  the  first  god 
of  mythology;  not  God's  man,  who  represents  the 
one  God,  and  is  his  own  image  and  likeness;  the 
opposite  of  Spirit  and  its  creations:  that  which  is 
not  the  image  and  likeness  of  Good,  but  a  material 
belief,  opposed  to  the  one  Mind,  or  Spirit; 
so-called  finite  mind,  producing  other  minds,  thus 
making 'gods  many  and  lords  many';  a  product 
of  nothing,  as  the  opposite  of  something,  an 
unreality  as  opposed  to  the  great  reality  of 
spiritual  existence  and  creation ;  a  so-called  man, 
whose  origin,  substance  and  mind  are  supposed 
to  be  the  opposite  of  God  or  Spirit;  an  inverted 
image  of  Spirit;  the  image  and  likeness  of  God's 
opposites,  namely  matter,  sin,  sickness  and  death; 
the  antipodes  of  Truth,  termed  error,  the  coun- 
terfeit of  Life,  which  ultimates  in  death;  the 
opposition  of  Love,  called  hate ;  the  antipodes  of 
Spirit's  creation,  called  self-creative  matter; 
Immortality's  opposite,  mortality,  that  of  which 
wisdom  saith,  'Thou  shalt  surely  die. '  This  name 
represents  the  false  supposition  that  life  is  not 
eternal,  but  has  beginning  and  end;  that  the 
infinite  enters  the  finite ;  intelligence  passes  into 
non-intelligence,  and  soul  dwells  in  material 
sense ;  that  immortal  mind  results  in  matter,  and 
matter  in  mortal  mind;  that  the  one  God  and 
Creator  entered  what  he  created,  and  then  disap- 
peared in  the  atheism  of  matter. ' ' 


ITS  FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE  117 

Such  a  mosaic  of  words  without  a  pattern  of 
thought  bewilders.  The  ancients  traced  figures 
of  men  and  animals  in  the  starry  heavens,  but 
imagination  fails  when  we  try  to  arrange  these 
words  as  thus  related  to  each  other  so  as  to  form 
a  pattern  of  thought.  With  Polonius  we  are 
puzzled;  have  we  a  whale,  a  camel  or  a  weasel? 

"Know  then  thyself,  presume  not  God  to  scan: 
The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man." 

But  such  a  man  defies  study,  and  yet  this  man 
is  the  one  most  of  us  know  most  about  by  experi- 
ence. 

Elias  is  defined  to  be  Christian  Science.  The 
Holy  Ghost  is  Divine  Science.  The  New  Jerusa- 
lem is  Divine  Science.  Thus  we  have  an  historic 
character,  a  prophetic  city  and  the  Holy  Ghost  all 
meaning  the  same,  and  that  same  Christian  Sci- 
ence is  the  modern  metempsychosis,  it  changes 
form  so  often  through  its  strange  use  of  words 
that  a  man  questions  if  he  be  not  his  own 
ancestor,  and  may  yet  be  his  own  descendant. 

DIFFICULTIES  IN  THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE. 

Puzzling  as  the  form  is,  the  substance  is  still 
more  baffling.  It  is  neither  gnosticism  nor 
idealism,  nor  pantheism,  though  bearing  a  family 
resemblance  to  each  in  turn.  It  is  a  revelation. 
"Christian  Science  reveals  incontrovertibly  that 
Mind  is  All-in-all,  that  the  only  realities  are  the 
divine  mind  and  idea."     .     .     .     "God,  who  at 


ii8    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  tmto 
the  fathers  through  the  prophets,  hath  in  these 
last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son."  Whatever 
truths  there  may  have  been  in  the  broken,  frag- 
mentary revelations  of  the  past  were  all  gathered 
up  in  the  fuller  revelations  of  the  Son.  But  this 
revelation  of  and  through  Christ  was  also  incom- 
plete. He  promised  another  Comforter  who 
should  lead  into  all  truth.  Christian  Science  is 
this  promised  Comforter.  As  Christ's  revelation 
interpreted  all  previous  revelation,  so  Christian 
Science  interprets  Christ  and  previous  prophets. 
This  is  "a  final  revelation  of  the  absolute  prin- 
ciple of  Scientific  Mind-healing."  This  final 
revelation  is  of  God  and  man  and  their  mutual 
relations.  This  revelation  is  that  "erring,  mor- 
tal, misnamed  mind  produces  all  the  organism 
and  action  of  the  mortal  body,"  and  that  "all  real 
Being  is  the  divine  Mind  and  idea;  that  Life, 
Truth,  and  Love  are  all-powerful  and  ever-pres- 
ent; that  the  opposites  of  Truth — called  error, 
sin,  sickness,  disease  and  death — are  the  false 
testimony  of  false  material  sense ;  that  this  false 
sense  evolves,  in  belief,  a  subjective  state  of 
mortal  mind,  which  this  same  mind  calls  matter, 
thereby  shutting  out  the  true  sense  of  Spirit." 

A  revelation  is  to  be  received,  not  reasoned 
about;  welcomed,  not  debated;  lived,  not  thought. 
This  revelation  gives  God's  point  of  view.  Mrs. 
Eddy  stands  at  the  center  of  the  universe  and 
looks  out.  Thus  standing,  there  is  no  time,  no 
succession  in  events,  no    space-relation.      When 


ITS  FORM  AND   SUBSTANCE  119 

she  says,  "There  is  no  matter,  no  sin,  no  sickness, 
no  death,"  she  states  what  is  not  to  God.  Now 
and  then  a  prophet  caught  a  glimpse  of  God's 
purpose  and  foretold  to  men  what  was  present  to 
God.  Christ  put  God's  present  purpose  and 
thought  into  the  future  tense  for  man ;  Paul  saw 
a  redeemed  universe  as  it  was  in  God's  thought, 
but  always  spoke  of  it  as  in  the  future  for  man ; 
but  Mrs.  Eddy,  standing  by  God's  side,  deals  in 
the  eternal  present.  To  him  the  verb  of  life  has 
but  one  tense,  the  present  tense.  She  does  not 
write  God's  thoughts  in  man's  grammar,  but 
seeks  to  compel  us  to  share  God's  thought. 

A     PARAPHRASE. 

Picture  a  man  standing  before  a  large  mirror. 
To  him  there  is  nothing  but  himself  and  his  image 
or  reflection.  It  has  no  meaning  aside  from  him ; 
its  business  is  to  reflect  him.  As  long  as  he 
stands  thus  before  the  mirror  in  the  light,  its 
motions  correspond  to  his  motions.  Suppose  this 
an  eternal  mirror,  faced  by  an  eternal  man,  cast- 
ing an  eternal  reflection,  then  this  man  and  his 
reflection  are  all  there  are  in  the  universe  to  him. 
Suppose  this  reflection  endowed  with  power  of 
thought,  of  choice,  of  will,  suppose  it  to  come  to 
self-consciousness,  to  begin  to  think  it  was  some- 
thing in  and  of  itself.  It  begins  to  think  its  own 
thoughts,  to  make  a  world  for  itself.  The  man 
thus  standing  sees  simply  his  own  reflection ;  to 
him  this  change  in  the  image  is  not  real ;  he  sees 
himself  in  the  mirror,  but  the  reflection  sees  itself 


120    SEARCHLIGHTS    ON   CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

and  loses  him.  Whatever  comes  into  the  life  of 
this  image  is  not  real  to  the  man,  and  so  not 
really  real.  The  world  of  the  image  is  but  a 
dream ;  his  thoughts  are  not  real  thoughts,  for  the 
only  reality  is  the  man  and  the  reflection  which 
he  sees. 

God  is  the  eternal  being,  truth,  life,  principle. 
He  is  conscious  of  himself  and  his  idea,  his 
reflection.  This  idea  is  as  eternal  as  he  is.  It 
always  was,  always  will  be ;  it  has  no  real  being 
except  as  it  reflects  him.  God  is  Spirit.  Man  is 
God's  spiritual  reflection.  This  spiritual  reflec- 
tion came  to  self-consciousness,  lost  God-conscious- 
ness; this  loss  was  his,  not  God's.  To  God  he  is 
still  the  spiritual  reflection,  God  sees  him  as  he 
always  has  seen  him.  This  passing  phase  of 
self-consciousness  is  unknown  to  God,  hence 
unreal  in  any  right  sense.  Coming  to  self-con- 
sciousness, thinking  himself  to  be  a  real  thing 
apart  from  God  whose  reflection  he  is,  this  idea  of 
God's  began  to  think  its  own  thoughts.  Himself 
a  thought  of  God,  instead  of  reflecting  God,  he 
began  to  express  himself.  God's  reflection  is 
spiritual,  the  real  man;  man's  reflection  is  what 
we  call  matter.  This  reflection  of  man's  is  real 
only  to  himself,  not  real  to  God,  so  not  true.  The 
spirit  of  man  is  God's  thought,  idea,  reflection; 
the  body  of  man  is  man's  idea,  thought,  reflec- 
tion ;  it  has  no  reality  to  God,  hence  no  reality  in 
the  right  sense  of  the  word.  Having  thought  a 
body,  man  goes  on  to  think  a  world  to  fit  the 
body,  a  universe  as  a  part  of  the  world.     All  that 


ITS  FORM   AND  SUBSTANCE  121 

lies  within  the  horizon  of  the  sense-life  is  the 
reflection  of  mortal  mind,  and  is  unreal  to  God. 
A  building  is  the  expression  of  mortal  mind ;  it  is 
in  thought  before  it  is  in  sight.  The  bricks  and 
hewn  stone  and  shaped  timber  are  also  the 
expressions  of  human  thought.  Bricks,  cut 
stone,  hewn  timber  are  first  thought  out ;  but  the 
clay,  the  stone  in  the  quarry,  the  trees  on  the  hill- 
side, are  also  expressions  of  human  thought. 
God  thought  and  thinks  man's  spirit,  man  did 
think  God  when  he  was  true,  now  he  thinks 
matter,  in  many  forms,  and  is  false.  He  has  gone 
into  the  far  country,  is  wasting  his  substance  in 
riotous  living,  is  thinking  in  terms  of  wine  and 
swine.  When  he  comes  to  himself  he  will  come 
to  his  father,  then  he  will  begin  to  live  again. 
This  life  in  the  far  country  is  unreal,  is  death. 
God  sees  only  the  son  of  his  love,  sees  him 
returning,  sandaled,  ringed,  clothed,  kissed, 
restored.  To  the  sculptor  the  only  reality  is  the 
form  he  sees  in  the  stone ;  the  stone  is  only  the 
accident,  the  idea  is  the  substance.  To  the  artist 
the  idea  in  his  mind  is  all,  he  does  not  dwell  on 
the  canvas,  the  color,  but  sees  all  the  time  the 
perfect  picture.  To  the  real  thinker,  language  is 
not  thought  of,  the  thought  is  all.  Thus  God 
deals  directly  with  the  spirit  of  man;  to  him 
matter  is  not,  it  never  was  the  expression  of  his 
thought.  Thus  it  follows,  that  whatever  is 
thought  or  suffered  in  matter  is  unreal  to  God. 
Pain,  disease,  sickness,  death,  are  only  human 
experiences  in  a  realm  that  has  no  existence  to 


122    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

God,  so  they  have  no  reality  to  God.  These 
experiences  are  real  to  man,  when  man  is  false  to 
God,  but  unreal  to  God  because  he  deals  only 
with  the  true,  the  real.  There  is  no  sin  to  God ; 
because  sin  is  not  in  God's  thought,  only  in 
man's  thought  when  he  is  false  to  God.  Man  as 
God  thinks  him  does  not,  cannot,  sin;  whatever 
man  thinks  when  he  is  false  to  God  is  not  real  to 
God.  So  far  as  man  reflects  God  he  is  real  to 
God;  when  man  thinks  away  from  God,  his 
thoughts,  in  terms  of  matter  or  of  sin,  are  unreal. 
The  secret  of  health  is  in  thinking  God,  reflecting 
God;  God's  life  thus  possesses  man's  spirit,  matter 
loses  its  reality,  sin,  sickness  and  death  disappear 
from  experience,  blotted  out  as  the  clouds  are  by 
the  sun,  or  evil  by  good. 

A  lake  reflects  the  sun,  is  ablaze  with  its  glory, 
lives  in  its  light.  Presently  a  mist  rises  from  the 
lake  and  shuts  the  sun  out,  the  mist  is  more  real 
to  the  lake  than  the  sun  is.  Instead  of  expressing 
the  sun,  the  lake  now  expresses  itself,  its  own 
expression  shuts  it  in;  shore,  sky  and  sun  are  all 
blotted  out.  The  lake  knows  only  itself  and  its 
expression,  its  mist;  the  sun  shines  right  on,  the 
mist  disappears.  The  man  God  made  reflects 
God,  man  as  we  know  him  is  caught  in  the  fog  of 
his  own  making,  in  matter  of  his  own  thinking. 
God  shines  right  on,  the  mist,  never  real  to  the 
sun,  ceases  to  be  real  to  the  lake;  the  sun  is 
accepted  again,  the  relation  is  restored,  man 
thinks  God;  sin,  sickness  and  death  disappear 
from  man  as  man  reappears  in  God. 


ITS  FORM  AND   SUBSTANCE  123 

EFFECT    OF    SUCH    ABSTRACTIONS. 

This  line  of  thought  insisted  upon,  repeated, 
reiterated,  becomes  real,  takes  possession  of  the 
mind ;  matter  loses  its  mastery.  God  is  realized 
as  the  life  of  life,  and  God's  man  walks  in  the  light 
as  he  is  in  the  light.  The  form,  foreign  English, 
the  substance,  a  revelation,  make  it  hard  to 
understand  Christian  Science.  Possibly  if  the 
church  were  more  spiritually  minded,  if  the  bride 
of  Christ  were  less  at  home  with  the  world,  if 
Christians  were  leading  a  life  that  demands 
supernatural  spiritual  power  to  account  for  it, 
there  would  be  less  place  in  the  world  for  theos- 
ophy  and  Christian  Science. 

"The  world  is  too  much  with  us.     Late  and  soon 
Buying  and  selling  we  lay  waste  our  powers." 

Most  of  the  disciples  are  face  to  face  with 
unconquered  demons  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain ; 
those  in  the  transfiguring  glory  are  content  to 
build  tabernacles  and  abide.  The  cure  for  Chris- 
tian Science  is  not  alone  clear  thought,  but  a  pro- 
founder  type  of  spiritual  life. 

"  'Tis  life  whereof  the  nerves  are  scant,  more 
life  and  fuller,  that  men  want."  Christ  came 
that  we  might  have  life,  and  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly, but  the  average  church  life  is  not  an 
abundant  spiritual  life. 

Not  a  few  worship  at  the  altar  of  the  unknown 
God,  grope  after  if  haply  they  may  find,  do  not 
realize  that  God  is  **  nearer  than  thinking,  closer 


124  SEARCHLIGHTS  ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

than  hands  and  feet";  that  he  is  a  "very  pres- 
ent help  in  every  time  of  trouble";  that  he  is 
the  God  of  the  body  as  of  the  spirit,  of  the  mind 
as  of  the  heart.  Very  few  of  us  realize  with  Paul 
death  to  the  world  and  life  in  Christ,  and  live  the 
life  that  is  "hid  with  Christ  in  God." 
There  are  certain 

OBJECTIONS    TO    THE    SCIENCE. 

1.  It  cannot  well  be  a  science  and  a  revelation 
too ;  the  two  words  are  mutually  exclusive.  Sci- 
ence deals  with  truth  learned  by  the  use  of  human 
powers.  Revelation  gives  direct  insight  without 
the  labor  of  experiment. 

2.  Granting  that  Mrs.  Eddy  was  healed  directly 
by  divine  power,  her  system  of  thought  no  more 
explains  it  than  thunder  explains  lightning.  Her 
experience  of  direct  healing  is  shared  by  many, 
her  explanation  throws  no  light  on  the  fact;  it 
adds  about  as  much  to  the  truth  as  the  spider's 
web  adds  to  the  beams  in  the  barn ;  it  gives  her 
mind  a  place  to  swing  from,  catches  flying  motes, 
and  in  the  dimness  seems  a  part  of  the  beam  till 
you  trust  your  weight  to  it. 

3.  Because  we  do  not  know  what  matter  is,  it 
does  not  follow  that  matter  is  not;  because 
we  do  not  know  what  matter  is  to  God,  it 
does  not  follow  that  matter  is  nothing  to  him. 
We  may  presume  that  matter  is  not  to  God 
what  it  is  to  man ;  it  is  our  limitation ;  it  may  be 
his  expression,  and  when  we  have  passed  through 
the  caterpillar  stage  it  may  prove  to  be  wings  to 


ITS  FORM  AND  SUBSTANCE  125 

US  in  turn.  The  egg  floats  and  enspheres  the 
germ  of  life,  but  under  the  brooding  warmth  of 
the  bird  the  sea  of  white  and  yellow  becomes 
building  stuff,  the  shell  yields,  a  winged  song 
comes  to  the  light,  the  narrow  horizon  of  the  shell 
becomes  the  wide  horizon  of  the  world,  giving 
unlimited  play  to  every  power.  It  may  well  be 
that  man's  spirit  is  but  the  germ  in  a  sea  of 
matter,  shelled  by  matter,  but  under  the  brooding 
of  the  Spirit  to  build  body  and  wings  that  shall 
bear  the  singing  soul  aloft  into  an  unlimited 
future. 

4.  Sin  is  a  mood  of  mind,  a  set  of  the  will,  the 
choice  of  self;  the  act  of  sin  is  but  the  thunder 
clap,  the  /act  of  sin  is  the  lightning  stroke  that 
scars  and  blights.  Faith  is  a  mood  of  mind,  a 
state  of  heart,  a  surrender  of  the  will;  the  soul 
acts  as  really  when  it  acts  against  God  as  when  it 
acts  with  God :  rebellion  is  as  real  as  surrender, 
an  impure  thought  as  real  as  a  pure  thought; 
impurity  of  the  heart  is  as  real  as  impurity  of  the 
body,  and  impurity  of  the  heart  is  as  real  as 
purity  of  the  heart. 

5.  The  assertion  of  revelation  is  not  proof  of  a 
revelation.  Christ's  full  speech  fulfilled  the 
broken  speech  of  the  prophets;  if  his  teaching 
had  contradicted  all  that  had  gone  before,  it  might 
well  have  been  challenged.  This  revelation  (?) 
does  not  explain,  it  contradicts  what  has  been 
previously  given.  Such  a  method  of  interpreta- 
tion applied  to  law,  medicine,  business,  literature 
would   upset  the  world.      Alice   in  Wonderland 


126    SEARCHLIGHTS   ON   CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

stepping  through  mirrors  would  be  a  sane  guide 
compared  to  the  leadings  of  this  Wandering  Jew 
of  modern  literature  called  "Science  and 
Health.'' 


THE    END. 


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